Useless Tennis Fact Day 8

The phrase 'Anyone for tennis?' is thought to have originated in George Bernard Shaw's 1910 play 'Misalliance', in which Johnny Tarleton asks "Anybody on for a game of tennis?"

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Reading is a dangerous amusement, Tarleton. I wish I could persuade your free library people of that.

TARLETON. Why, man, it's the beginning of education.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. On the contrary, it's the end of it. How can you dare teach a man to read until youve taught him everything else first?

JOHNNY. [intercepting his father's reply by coming out of the swing and taking the floor] Leave it at that. That's good sense. Anybody on for a game of tennis?

BENTLEY. Oh, lets have some more improving conversation. Wouldn't you rather, Johnny?

JOHNNY. If you ask me, no.

I have never heard this before. I just knew "anyone for Pimm's?", yes please is usually my answer to both questions.

Nope. Monty Python invented this phrase, it's a scientific fact.

Careful JM, or we'll end up in the Argument Sketch.

No we won't.

If we want tennis-related British comedy :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd90m3xKfl8

Classic!

The expression of "anyone for tennis" is well known as a take-off from the 1980's satire of "anyone for Denis" relating to the life of Denis Thatcher as husband of the Prime Minister.

I always thought Cream had made this one famous.

Not one of their finer moments it must be said.

OMG, check out the following stat.

The longest women's match (by time) took place at a tournament in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, when Vicki Nelson took 6 hours, 31 minutes to defeat Jean Hepner 6–4, 7–6(11). The match featured a 29-minute, 643-shot rally, the longest in professional tennis history

How the.. can you play a 29 minute rally?

I mean that's just crazy

BTW that means 2.7 seconds for each shot

Blatant, shameless moonballing

Yeah I read about that a while back. Here's an update http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/sports/tennis/24tennis.html

emancipator wrote:OMG, check out the following stat.

The longest women's match (by time) took place at a tournament in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, when Vicki Nelson took 6 hours, 31 minutes to defeat Jean Hepner 6–4, 7–6(11). The match featured a 29-minute, 643-shot rally, the longest in professional tennis history

How the.. can you play a 29 minute rally?

I mean that's just crazy

You are omitting some very important details: that the two ladies got their hair and nails done in the process and that one of them had a cup of tea with biscuits at 5.

Thanks PM forgot to mention that.

Also, the ball when into orbit at one point so they had to wait for it to do a full circuit before they could resume; I think they may have taken that opportunity to do their hair and nails.

Julius, that article is inadvertantly hilarious.

One of the girls, when asked how a rally could go on for so long, replied 'there was loads of lobbing going on' - good euphemism

One of them said "we were both standing at the baseline lobbing". You can't teach talent like that.

JuliusHMarx wrote:One of them said "we were both standing at the baseline lobbing". You can't teach talent like that.

They have one particular Moonballing Facility in the fishing village of Manacor

Manacor is inland - perhaps you mean Porto Cristo?

Putting it into context Graf took just five minutes longer to beat Natasha Zvereva in the !988 French Open final 6-0,6-0! Zvereva won a grand total of 13 points just over one a game on average.