User:15Mickey20/Lawn Tennis

Lawn Tennis is a bloody and morally questionable early forerunner to the game of tennis. The lawn version is now virtually extinct, except for in crusty aristocratic social clubs that are so behind the times that none of the members own a PSP.

ball-smacking fun at Wimbledon

Origins

Lawn tennis was invented in Wimbledon, which, in the mid-nineteenth century, was home to the All England Croquet Club. Then on one momentous day, Lord Alfred William Nathan Tennis got tired of knocking balls through hoops. He picked up his ball and whacked it with his mallet. The ball hit Lord Snooty in the face and knocked him unconscious. All who witnessed this act thought it was a jolly good laugh, including Lord Snooty. When he woke up Snooty asked "Where am I?" and there was much raucous laughter once he was told, because this was the way English gentlemen regarded potentially life-threatening injury in those days. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing Lord Tennis's delightful new game.

A week later, the croquet club gathered for the very first lawn tennis knockout tournament, so-called because a player was eliminated by being knocked out. Lord Tennis performed admirably in the competition, reaching the last four before he tripped over the carcass of the eighth (and last) Earl of Blackpool and then failed to get up before the ten count. The winner was Serena Williams, who withstood numerous shots to the head and reigned as the last man standing. Her great great granddaughter would go on to win many titles in the modern version of the game.

The net issue

Serena Williams

As the sport grew in popularity, some key figures in the game’s hierarchy grew increasingly concerned at the number of genital injuries. The practice of “testicle smashing” had become a much-lauded element of tennis strategy, but there was a problem. Many leading players felt that Serena Williams had an unfair advantage over her opponents, as her testicles had been amputated long ago, following a childhood accident at a sword factory. In the interests of fair play, the Lawn Tennis Association resolved to protect its players’ manhoods. The solution that was devised was revolutionary: a waist-high net was to be placed in between the combatants. Although an overhead testicle smash was still possible, the other versions would be much less common.

Many traditionalists were outraged at the decision, feeling that banning tennis’s testicle smash would “take the sport out of it”. Local nutter, Charles Darwin, also wanted to keep things as they were, arguing that men pummelling their reproductive organs for sport was an occurrence of natural selection in its purest form and he found it funny. However, pounding an opponent’s gonads was a serious business to a group of rebels who created their own sport. Led by Lord Badminton, the rebels still played with a net, but this was head high and had space below it which allowed players to “shuttlecock” their opponent.

Important Moments in The History of Lawn Tennis

• 1885 - Lord Yonex of Slazenger invents the racquet. Some players were sceptical, believing that it's size meant it could act as a shield. It turned out that racquets improved accuracy and power, so that when you did get past the opposition defence, injury was far more likely. Naturally, the racquet was hugely popular amongst pain enthusiasts and the design made Slazenger hugely wealthy(er).
• 1886 - Everyone decides "racquet" was a silly spelling and it was changed to "racket". Lord Slazenger's butler, Cavendish, was publically flogged for coming up with such a ludicrous spelling.
  

  Proper Attire
• 1895 - The All England Club imposes an all-white dress code. This colour was considered to be the most visually complementary with the grass and blood so synonymous with the sport. The All England Club also insisted on gentlemen wearing cravats at all times and ladies in the vicinity wearing blindfolds so that their innocent little doe eyes didn't have to witness the bloodshed.
• 1901 - Queen Victoria dies. This has nothing to do with lawn tennis. It was just rather sad.
• 1914 - British and German forces fighting in the First World War put down their guns on Christmas day and play lawn tennis in no man's land. Field Marshall Gerald Wilson cunningly swaps the ball for a grenade, killing three Huns with his slice backhand. This act of ingenuity was applauded heartily by both sides who then gathered for carolling around the nearest piano.

Decline

There are many factors that contributed to the remodelling of lawn tennis into the game we see today, but, according to the Society for the Promotion of LAwn Tennis (SPLAT), the key underlying cause was the “decline in Western society that can be traced back to when women were allowed to vote”. The new game was developed in the 1960s by “a bunch of soft American hippies who were probably also behind those awful Beatles fellows”. Instead of hitting each other with the ball, the new rules seemed to encourage hitting the ball in the other direction “in some sort of drug inspired attempt to promote love and peace”.

SPLAT’s chief spokesman, Lord Attenborough, can no longer watch the current tennis product.

“ Whenever it accidentally appears on the television, one feels sick. I would like to take a tennis ball and volley it up Roger Federer’s arse. Now that’s real tennis. ”