They are on the courts before anyone and after everyone. We asked what four decades of grass has taught them about how we play.
The first thing you learn is that nobody looks down. Players read the ball and the opponent and never the surface they are standing on.
The second thing is that the courts tell you who has been on them. Wear comes in patterns, and the patterns are habits.
Courtside Desk Stories filed by the Courtside editors.
Four hours, two tie-breaks and a crowd of nine. The house final nobody was watching turned into the best tennis of the term.
It loses more points than it wins. It is harder to teach, harder to time and worse against height. Keep it anyway.
We restrung six rackets to exactly the same specification and gave them back unlabelled. Only two players noticed.
Thirty-one boys, two courts, one afternoon and a selector with a clipboard. What actually gets noticed in ninety seconds.
