The court slants 5 degrees uphill. Because the players change sides every so often, there are now four different states a player can be in: "on serve uphill"; "on serve downhill", "off serve uphill" or "off serve downhill". This is more interesting than just "on serve" or "not on serve".

Serving will probably be easier when facing uphill, since there is more room for the ball to land in the court (i.e. a more favorable range of angles to serve the ball which will land it in play). But volleying uphill will be more difficult as the net will be effectively higher.

The slopes will also make ball retrieval much easier; ball boys need never run across the court.

I am dubbing this sport Royal tennis, to improve the odds that someone will take it seriously.

Thank you.
-- phundug, Nov 06 2006

Real Tennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_tennis
[MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 20 2018]

//Serving will probably be easier when facing uphill, since there is more room for the ball to land in the court.// How would there be more surface area to land the ball in just because you were facing uphill? There would be just as much surface area if you were facing downhill, right?
-- Chefboyrbored, Nov 06 2006


Make them play in a remote controlled, spinning, undulating, patterned dairy aquarium, pulled along on the back of a horse-drawn cart and call it "Underwater, Gipsy Twisting, Computerised Chess with Cheese and Lacrosse Sticks"
-- zen_tom, Nov 06 2006


How about if the entire court was balanced on a central fulcrum so that the angle of play was in constant motion as the players move across the surface? Although the fulcrum would probably be no higher than 24 inches for safety purposes, the court would be able to pitch right, left, forwards, backwards and on the bias based on the relative positioning of the opponents to the center of the net. Planar movements would be fairly gradual since the mass of the court is so much greater than that of the players, however it would give each player the ability to strategize his movements for the greatest possible advantage against his opponent.
-- jurist, Nov 06 2006


I'd finally have an advantage in [jurist]'s version... weight.
-- craigts, Nov 06 2006


Serving might be a tradeoff, since, when serving uphill it is easier to serve faster since you can serve more horizontally than usual and still land it "in", but then the bounce is slower. Downhill you have to serve slower but the bounce is bigger.
-- phundug, Nov 07 2006


//I'd finally have an advantage in [jurist]'s version...// Presumably you mean that playing from behind the baseline would allow you to use your heavier weight to continuously keep your end of the court tilted down. Therefore, you will always be hitting the ball upwards against gravity, causing you to tire more quickly, and you are going to hate my net game! You may want to rethink that play strategy.
-- jurist, Nov 07 2006


//Therefore, you will always be hitting the ball upwards against gravity...// Fortunately, I'm taller than 48 inches so gravity would still be on my side.
-- craigts, Nov 07 2006


Make both sides of the court slope down away from the net. Just enough that a dropped ball will roll back off the court, I'd say. Both ends would be the same, then, and serving would be tougher. Hmm, maybe lower the net so it seems the same apparent height from mid-court.
-- baconbrain, Nov 09 2006


//I am dubbing this sport Royal tennis//

If you want weird, there is always Real Tennis, which is much more complicated and bizarre than this faddish Lawn Tennis and takes place in an asymmetric court using asymmetric rackets and asymmetric rules.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 20 2018



random, halfbakery