The Royal Navy during the Second World War A30982

Deck tennis is a

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

that is played by mariners on the decks of both cargo and passenger vessels. The sport is a hybrid between

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

and

quoits Quoits ( or ) is a traditional game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike (sometimes called a hob, mott or pin). The game of quoits encompasses several distinct var ...

, and is played with either the

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

disk or ring, or a similarly-sized rope ring. The sport has been standardized and formalized in several countries under names such as "

tennikoit Tennikoit, also called Ringtennis or tenniquoits, is a sport played on a tennis-style court, with a circular rubber ring ("tennikoit", c.f. the game quoits) hurled over a net separating the two players, with each endeavoring to catch and return t ...

" or "ring tennis". American sources from the 1930s and 1940s attribute the origin, or at least formal establishment of the game, to Cleve F. Shaffer. In 1981 Mariano Herrera and Alejandro Nougues from Argentina won the first and only

Deck Tennis World Championship Deck may refer to: A level or platform Buildings and structures *Deck (bridge), the roadway surface of a bridge *Deck (building), an outdoor floor attached to a building made of wood or wood-like material *Another name for a storey *The concrete ...

celebrated in the sunny beaches of Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Rules

Most games of deck tennis, unlike the official tennikoit form, are informal and without set rules or a governing body, so rules tend to vary. Usually it is played on a court roughly 40 to 50 feet (11 to 14 m) long and 15 to 20 feet (5 to 7 m) wide and may be played as either as singles or doubles. The midcourt

net Net or net may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence * Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2 * Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...

is usually the height, or higher than that of a tennis net. The goal of the game is to serve (throw) the ring into the opponent's court, and the opponent tries to catch it before it falls and immediately throw it back from the same position where it was caught, with a point being scored when the server managed to land a quoit on the opponent's side of the court. The scoring system is commonly the same as regular tennis: Love, 15, 30, 40, Deuce, Advantage, Game. This is in contrast with tennikoit, where sets are played to 21 individual points, similar to badminton.

In popular culture

In the 1936 film ''

Piccadilly Jim ''Piccadilly Jim'' is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 24 February 1917 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom in May 1918 by Herbert Jenkins, London.McIlvaine (1990), pp. 31–31, A20. ...

'', Robert Montgomery as "Piccadilly Jim" is depicted playing the game with his romantic rival in the film

Ralph Forbes Ralph Forbes (born Ralph Forbes Taylor; 30 September 1904 – 31 March 1951) was an English film and stage actor active in Britain and the United States. Early life Forbes was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Ernest John "E.J." and Eth ...

as "Lord Frederick Priory" on the deck of an ocean liner.

References

Games of physical skill Forms of tennis Deck sports {{tennis-stub