St Andrews’ Most Eccentric Sport

A royal ride-along with the Real Tennis Club

My opponent whacks the ball over the net into my side of the court. I’m not sure if I’m meant to return it and my indecision quickly proves fatal. The ball bounces once, twice, and eventually rolls to a stop, undisturbed by my racquet. “Did I just win?” my opponent asks. I’m not completely sure.

To the uninitiated, this might sound like a somewhat pathetic tennis match. But this isn’t the sort you play in the sports centre. Our racquets are wonky, the ball is a heavy, handcrafted cork sphere, and the two sides of the court are entirely different from one another. Though it’s scored the same as ‘normal’ tennis — points go from ‘love’ to ‘40’ — a well-placed shot through a hole in a wall or a hit to a bell in the corner will instantly bag you a point. Our court is a bit more up-market than the sports centre — we’re playing on the grounds of an 800-year-old palace, on the oldest tennis court in the world. Welcome to the world of ‘real tennis’.

Real tennis has its origins in twelfth-century France when the ball was slapped with a gloved hand instead of a racquet. The game spread across the royal courts of Western Europe and peaked in popularity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

As Europe modernised, the medieval sport was eclipsed by its far more accessible competitor, lawn tennis. As of 2025, there are only 45 real tennis courts left, over half of which are in the UK and none of which are exactly alike. 

But St Andreans shouldn’t lose hope yet. A short drive out of town sits Falkland Palace, first constructed under King James V’s orders in 1538, and the only remaining court in Scotland.

“If I were to design a sport that I think nobody would enjoy learning to play, it would probably be real tennis,” said Kenneth Huang, the fourth-year captain of the St Andrews Real Tennis Club.

Though the club isn’t affiliated with the University, something Huang attributes to not wanting members to pay “130 quid for a facility that we don’t use,” its links with St Andrews students are arguably far longer-lasting than any other club.

“The first iteration of the club was back in like the 1400s and the 1500s,” Huang told me. “Back then the University had two courts. One where the current St Leonard’s pitches are and another where the Saint [the South Street bar, not the world-class student paper ] is currently.”

Huang points me to a 1571 passage from the diary of St Andrews student James Melville. In this, he complains that his father Andrew Melville — of prefabricated concrete hall fame — hadn’t given him enough sporting kit. He writes that though he had “bow” and “arrose” for “archerie”, and “glub and bals” for “goff”, he lacked the appropriate equipment for a game of “catchpull” — now known as real tennis. 

Such concerns remained pressing right into the twentieth century, with the club surviving the global downturn in real tennis mania and only shut down. It was only with the outbreak of the First World War that it met its end, alongside many of its members. “They didn't make it back and the club died with them,” Huang said. 

The club wasn’t dead for long, relatively speaking. In the mid-2010s, a group of students, armed with a newly-created Instagram account and access to the Falkland Court, decided to resurrect the club. Though Huang told me they faced some difficulty during the Covid-19 pandemic, by 2023 they were firmly established, even travelling to Cambridge to compete in the Inter-University Cup.

It was with these real tennis enthusiasts that I set out on the 40-minute journey to Falkland Palace in order to experience the real thing. After escaping Guardbridge roadworks purgatory, we arrived at the rear entrance of the palace and parked next to the towering building that housed the court.

Ever wary of the fate of French King Charles VIII, who met his end after hitting his head on a real tennis court’s doorframe, we ducked under a wooden barrier and entered the enclosure. The palatial glamour was forgotten, replaced by black stone walls more Barbican than Buckingham. Only the icy February sky above was left to remind us we were outside. 

Red and gold crowns painted on the court’s walls to delineate the areas of play, perhaps a nod to real tennis’ other title, ‘the sport of kings’. Some appeared more detailed than others, a result of renovations left unfinished. My doubles partner, vice-captain Poppy Hinds, explained that the painter had left one day, never to return. A lively debate ensued among us over whether he had died or simply got bored. “I suppose he was quite old,” said Hinds.

Discounting the rules, playing the game itself is deceptively difficult. I fancied myself a passable tennis player, but when it came to hitting the ball, the bounce of the cork and cloth balls was a weak imitation of any modern tennis ball. I was left wildly swinging at the air above as if trying to swat a medieval fly.

When I did get a hit over the drooping net, the club’s more experienced players promptly sent it back my way with a sharp crack of racquet against cork. “There’s a lot of people in the club right now who have a lot of bruises from me,” Huang said.

After this quick warm-up, we venture onto the topic of rules. The first covered were the ways to score. Apart from the conventional double bounce, you can also score by hitting the ball into several areas and targets on the opponent's side. 

Unique to Falkland, these targets included a number of small openings in the back wall of the court, known as lunes. However, this also meant the ball risked being lost in the garden outside the court. This introduced a unique sporting situation where winning a point would incur a charge of £8.50. 

For those who eventually understand the game, a “huge network” awaits. Even small and far-flung clubs like St Andrews get “substantial support” from the UK’s governing body. 

“Anything we need is taken care of,” said Huang. who is currently considering using the funding they receive to purchase “a club car” that would ferry them to Falkland. 

Huang hasn’t let these networks go to waste. He told me of his time apprenticing for a professional player on a court in Newcastle, where he now spends four days a week. “I rotate between friends’ couches, maybe the occasional hotel.” 

All this serves as Huang’s preparation for a prestigious fellowship, which allows qualified young people to apprentice at one of the US courts. “Your accommodation is usually dealt with, and they give you a monthly stipend on top of whatever you earn at the club.” Not a bad deal for a sport he reckons has “only twenty” players across the US younger than 25.

Yet despite all the glory and glamour, Huang remains aware of his place in the real tennis food chain. “I don’t think I could beat the sixteenth-century dudes,” he said. “I can’t even beat some of the 80-year-old guys at Falkland.”

Illustration by Elizabeth Lang