From Royal Obsession to Cultural Retreat

1600s Decline of the Game

Timeline about the 1000-year-evolution of the sport of tennis

Introduction

The 17th century marked a stark reversal in tennis's fortunes. The sport that had captivated Europe during the Renaissance golden age now faced sustained assault from multiple directions at once. War ravaged the continent, destroying courts and claiming the lives of the players who had once filled them. Religious reformers condemned tennis as a frivolous or sinful indulgence, and prolonged economic hardship made the maintenance of expensive indoor courts increasingly unfeasible. New forms of entertainment competed for aristocratic attention, and fashions shifted away from the vigorous court games that had defined the previous century. By 1700, tennis survived only as a shadow of its former glory, preserved by a dwindling number of dedicated enthusiasts in scattered locations across a continent that had once embraced the game universally.

The Century Opens in Quiet Decline

The year 1600 found tennis at its zenith, with roughly 1,800 courts in operation across France and between 250 and 300 in Paris alone. Yet that extraordinary peak proved impossible to sustain. Within a few decades, a cascade of political, religious, and economic pressures began to erode the infrastructure and culture that the 16th century had taken over a hundred years to build. The Thirty Years' War, which engulfed much of Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, devastated cities where tennis had flourished, and the staggering costs of prolonged conflict drained the fortunes of nobles and merchants who had once financed court construction and professional play. Across much of the continent, buildings that had been dedicated to sport were damaged, repurposed for military use, or simply abandoned as communities struggled to survive.

Religious opposition deepened the damage. Calvinist and Puritan movements, which had already begun to condemn tennis during the late 16th century, grew more assertive and politically powerful during the 1600s. In cities and territories where Reformed Protestantism held sway, tennis was targeted as a worldly vanity incompatible with a godly life. Even in Catholic France, moralists continued to rail against the gambling and idleness they associated with the sport. These attacks chipped away at tennis's cultural legitimacy and discouraged new investment in courts at a time when the game could least afford to lose support.

Economic hardship compounded the decline. The 17th century was a period of widespread fiscal strain across Europe, and maintaining the specialized infrastructure that Real Tennis demanded was expensive. Courts required constant upkeep, from floor resurfacing to penthouse repairs, and the craftsmen who performed this work commanded wages that financially struggling proprietors increasingly could not pay. Many court operators shuttered their businesses, and the specialized artisans who had built and maintained these facilities were forced to find other livelihoods. Meanwhile, new entertainments rose to compete for the aristocracy's time and gambling money. Card games, particularly faro, which originated in France during the late 17th century, absorbed much of the wagering energy that had once fueled tennis. The rise of professional theater, opera, and elaborate court spectacles provided aristocrats with sophisticated alternatives to sport. Some jeu de paume halls were physically converted into theaters during this period, a vivid emblem of the game's declining cultural position.

In France, the withdrawal of royal enthusiasm dealt a particularly heavy blow. Louis XIV, who had played tennis with enthusiasm in his youth, devoted his later years to alternative pastimes. The Sun King's magnificent court at Versailles was far more likely to host elaborate theatrical productions, stately ballets, and musical concerts than competitive tennis matches. Without fervent patronage from the throne, tennis slipped further into obscurity among the French elite. By the end of the century, Paris maintained perhaps 100 to 150 operational courts, a dramatic contraction from the 250 to 300 that had existed a hundred years earlier. Provincial cities supported only a scattering of venues, and the broader national tennis culture that had once been a source of French pride was rapidly fraying.

Yet tennis did not vanish entirely from French life. Paris remained the game's strongest bastion, and its surviving courts attracted those aristocrats, wealthy bourgeois, and dedicated players who still valued the sport's unique combination of athletic exertion and strategic depth. Commercial operators adapted by offering multiple leisure services at their facilities, hosting fencing lessons, billiards, and social gatherings during hours when tennis was not in demand. A modest community of French professional players continued practicing their craft, with the most skilled among them earning an adequate living by teaching aristocratic pupils and engaging in the occasional high-stakes match. The professional tennis community shrank dramatically from its golden-age peak, yet it managed to maintain an unbroken line of expertise and tradition. Equipment manufacturing likewise persisted on a reduced scale in Paris, where a few master racket makers and ball artisans still plied their trade, producing gear of fine quality and taking pride in upholding the exacting standards established during the previous century.

English Tennis Persists

In England, a modest tennis culture survived the 17th century, though the game never recaptured the prominence it had enjoyed under Henry VIII a century before. The early Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I, showed at least some interest in tennis, and Real Tennis courts continued to operate in royal palaces during the opening decades of the century. However, the upheaval of the mid-century brought an abrupt interruption to these traditions. The English Civil War of the 1640s tore the country apart, and the rise of a Puritan Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell brought with it an austere outlook on recreation. The Puritan regime viewed many traditional leisure activities as ungodly distractions, and tennis play was largely confined to private spaces and the households of royalist sympathizers during the 1650s. The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under Charles II revived some of the old courtly pastimes, and aristocrats who had spent years in exile on the Continent returned to England with renewed appetites for the leisure activities they had enjoyed abroad. Historic facilities such as the tennis court at Hampton Court Palace remained in use throughout the century, serving as living links to the Tudor golden age of the sport. Aristocrats and well-to-do gentlemen continued to rent court time at these iconic venues, preserving a degree of tennis tradition even as public enthusiasm for the game remained a far cry from its earlier peak. London's few commercial tennis courts operated intermittently, their financial fortunes rising and falling with the vagaries of aristocratic fashion and the broader economic climate. In more favorable periods, a renewed surge of interest among society's elite made such establishments briefly profitable, while in leaner times owners struggled to attract enough clientele to keep the doors open.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge provided more stable havens for the sport than any commercial operator could. Both institutions built and maintained private indoor tennis courts, treating the game as a valued part of a gentleman's education. At Oxford, student enthusiasts organized regular play and formed groups that sustained enough activity to justify retaining teaching professionals and equipment suppliers. Cambridge similarly preserved its tennis traditions, and the rivalry between the two universities extended to the tennis court, with matches between Oxford and Cambridge players generating competitive interest that kept the game alive in academic circles. Professional tennis players in England were few and far between by the century's end, serving primarily as resident instructors at noble estates or within the universities, and the era of famous itinerant champions competing in celebrated public matches had largely passed. English equipment manufacturing survived modestly as well, with craftsmen in London and the university towns producing rackets and balls for the limited domestic market. Quality varied, with the best English equipment approaching French standards while inferior products met budget-conscious demand. A trickle of English tennis literature still appeared during the century, preserving valuable knowledge about the sport's rules, techniques, and court architecture for readers who increasingly viewed the game as a historical curiosity or a gentlemanly accomplishment rather than a living national pastime. These writings, modest as they were, ensured that the accumulated wisdom of centuries of play would not be entirely lost.

The Tennis Court at Versailles One vivid symbol of tennis's shifting fortunes in the late 17th century was the royal Jeu de Paume hall constructed at Versailles in 1686 by the architect Nicolas Creté. Commissioned for Louis XIV and the Dauphin, this indoor tennis court was designed according to the established architectural principles of Real Tennis, with a playing area measuring approximately 110 feet in length and 40 feet in width. The building featured the traditional asymmetrical layout that had been perfected during the previous century, with sloping penthouse roofs along three sides, a dedans gallery, tambour, and grille, all finished to a standard of elegance befitting its place within one of Europe's grandest palace complexes. The very fact that such a magnificent facility was still being built in the 1680s testified to tennis's lingering prestige among the French elite, even as the sport's broader popularity had been fading for decades. [tennishistory.com]

Yet by the final years of the century, this splendid court saw only infrequent use for actual play. Louis XIV had long since turned his attention to other diversions, and without the king's active participation, few courtiers felt compelled to take up their rackets. The large covered space proved useful for gatherings, drills, and other non-sporting purposes, and its sheer size and quality of construction justified continued maintenance even when matches were rare. Rackets and balls remained stored at the facility for the occasional game, but the Versailles jeu de paume increasingly stood as a monument to an earlier era of royal passion for the sport rather than a venue for regular competition. In this sense, the court at Versailles perfectly embodied the paradox of late 17th-century tennis. The game retained enough cachet to warrant the construction of magnificent facilities, yet it had lost the cultural vitality that would have kept those facilities alive with daily play. This beautiful but underused hall would one day acquire a very different kind of historical significance, but within the scope of the 17th century, it served principally as an eloquent reminder of how far tennis had fallen from its golden age.

Timeline of Key Developments 1600 to 1700

c. 1600
Tennis reaches its historical peak in France with approximately 1,800 courts nationwide and 250–300 in Paris alone.

1618–1648
The Thirty Years' War devastates large parts of Europe; many tennis facilities are destroyed or abandoned.

1642–1651
The English Civil War and the Puritan regime under Cromwell lead to the closure of royal tennis courts and the suppression of aristocratic leisure culture.

1660
The Restoration under Charles II brings a limited revival of courtly sports, including tennis, in England.

1680s
Card games such as faro gain popularity and displace tennis as the preferred form of aristocratic entertainment.

1686
The Jeu de Paume hall at Versailles is constructed under Louis XIV for the Dauphin—one of the last major tennis buildings of the century.

c. 1700
The century ends with tennis drastically reduced: Paris maintains about 100–150 courts, England around two dozen; in other countries, tennis is scarcely present.