After a slew of podcasts about structuring, estate planning, investment themes and politics, I thought it would be fun to dive into a sport with a long, regal. and unusual history- COURT TENNIS (or “Real Tennis”). Descended from handball, and equal parts tennis (players face each other unlike squash and racquetball), platform tennis (where the walls are part of the court), the sport has all sorts of peculiar rules. It has strange looking racquets, arcane rules and courts with unusual and idiosyncratic dimensions. There are less than 50 courts in the world and roughly 10,000 players.

Longtime friend of the podcast, Haven Pell, joins us to talk about its interesting origins, where the sport is now and where it’s going. He is part of a team that is building a new court in Washington and has written about that process in his blog, THE PUNDIFICATOR.

He even shares the story of how Court Tennis gave us the Left and Right side of the aisle in American politics!

https://pundificator.com/around-the-world-in-50-courts-a-brief-detour/

We cover . . . the equipment

The Rules

The Crazy Dimensions of the Courts

The History of the Sport

Some of the Best and Most Famous Players in the World

And here is a little sample of some high level play: