Real tennis 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 (originally called "lawn tennis") is derived. It is also known as court tennis in the United States, formerly royal tennis in England and Australia, and courte-paume in France (a reference to the older, racquetless game of "jeu de paume", the ancestor of modern handball and racquet games; many French real tennis courts are at "jeu de paume" clubs). The term "real" was first used by journalists in the early 20th century as
Jeu de paume like the Mesoamerican ballgame are clearly unrelated. Various other racquet games (squash, badminton, etc.) may be related to one degree or another. The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a museum of contemporary art, is housed in a former court on the north side of the Tuileries park in the centre of Paris. The painter Jacques-Louis David's famous sketch, "le Serment du jeu de paume" ('the Tennis Court Oath') now hangs in the court of the Palace of Versailles. It depicts a seminal moment of the French Revolution, when, on 20 June 1789, deputies of the Estates-General met at the