Stické, also called stické tennis, is an indoor
racquet sport
Racket sports are games in which players use a racket or paddle to hit a ball or other object. Rackets consist of a handled frame with an open hoop that supports a network of tightly stretched strings. Paddles have a solid face rather than a ne ...
invented in the late 19th century merging aspects of
real tennis
Real tennis – one of several games sometimes called "the sport of kings" – is the original racquet sport from which the modern game of tennis (also called "lawn tennis") is derived. It is also known as court tennis in the United Sta ...
,
racquets and
lawn 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 cove ...
. It derives from (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
meaning "the art of playing ball"), the term originally given to lawn tennis by
Walter Clopton Wingfield
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield (16 October 1833 – 18 April 1912) was a Welsh people, Welsh inventor and a British Army officer who was one of the pioneers of tennis, lawn tennis.Tyzack, AnnThe True Home of Tennis''Country Life'', 22 June 2005 ...
.
Manner of play
Stické is played with standard lawn tennis
racquet
A racket, or racquet, is a sports implement used for striking a ball or shuttlecock in games such as squash, tennis, racquetball, badminton and padel. In the strictest sense a racket consists of a handled frame with an open hoop across which a ...
s and low pressure balls in an enclosed court. The court is somewhat similar to a real tennis court in shape, but is smaller (about 78 feet by 27 feet) and different in construction. Play takes place using all the basics of lawn tennis and the same scoring system, with the addition of side and back walls. Players face each other over the net in pairs.
As in real tennis, there is a ''penthouse,'' used throughout the game as a playing surface and on which the service has to land to start each point.
Some courts have a penthouse only down the side, while others have a penthouse at both ends as well.
History
There were over 50 courts built throughout the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
since 1875. The dimensions of the
Taplow Court
Taplow Court is a Victorian house in the village of Taplow in Buckinghamshire, England. Its origins are an Elizabethan manor house, remodelled in the early 17th century. In the 18th century the court was owned by the Earls of Orkney. In the 185 ...
built by
Lord Desborough
William Henry Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough, (30 October 1855 – 9 January 1945) was a British athlete, sportsman, public servant and politician. He sat in the House of Commons first for the Liberal Party and then for the Conservatives betwee ...
in 1892 became the standard. In the early 20th century, stické was a popular recreation at many country houses. At the time it was one of the few games that was played by both men and women.
As of 2005 there are only three playable courts remaining:
*
Hartham Park
Hartham Park is a Georgian manor house in Wiltshire, England, about north of the town of Corsham. Originally designed by James Wyatt, and set today in , it has within its grounds a stické tennis court. The house and nearby buildings were ...
in
Corsham
Corsham is a historic market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-eastern edge of the Cotswolds, just off the A4 national route, southwest of Swindon, southeast of Bristol, northeast of Bath and southwest o ...
,
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
(
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
). Built in 1904 out of wood.
*
Knightshayes Court
Knightshayes Court is a Victorian country house near Tiverton, Devon, England, designed by William Burges for the Heathcoat-Amory family. Nikolaus Pevsner describes it as "an eloquent expression of High Victorian ideals in a country house o ...
in
Tiverton,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
(England). Built in 1907 out of wood.
* Viceregal Lodge complex,
Indian Institute of Advanced Study
The Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) is a research institute located in Shimla, India. It was set up by the Ministry of Education, Government of India in 1964 and started functioning from 20 October 1965.
History and establishment
The ...
,
Shimla
Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the States and union territories of India, northern Indian state of Himachal Prade ...
,
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
(
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
).
Both English courts have active player groups, with an exception of Knightshayes during August to November 2015. During this time, the court was used to present an exhibition on the First World War, as the stické court was used throughout both the world wars as wards for wounded soldiers when the estate was used as a military hospital. The Indian court is primarily used for
badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...
.
A book about the sport, ''Sticke Tennis'' by Graham Tomkinson, was published in 2004.
A book ''The Rise and Fall of Sticke Tennis 1874-1939'' by Nigel Courtenay à Brassard, was published by Ronaldson Publications in 2017.
References
External links
Hartham Park Stické Clubhttps://www.sportshistorian.co.uk
'National Trust Knightshayes website'{{DEFAULTSORT:Sticke
Individual sports
Indoor sports
Ball games
Racket sports
Forms of tennis