FACTORALY - E92 TENNIS

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Tennis is one of the most-watched sports in the world. And it's been around a long time. From early origins as a game played with the hand against a wall, to the high-tech judged matches we can watch on TV today. In this episode, we explore all that history, with some heavy slices of weird thrown into the net for luck. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. Hello Simon. How are you today? I'm feeling quite exercised, thank you very much. Jolly good, been exercising your demons. Well exactly, yes, I've been taking them for a walk. It's the best way to get rid of demons is to take them for a walk. Just exhaust them. Yeah. Yeah, fine. Fresh air. And hello to everyone listening to us. Hello. Hello you and you. And you. And you. Not you, you're a bit sus but you know, I like her. Yeah. Yeah, she's nice She can stay In case any of you are wondering either you're new to the show and don't know what's going on or you've been listening for so Long that you've forgotten and given up caring what's going on Either way, what they're listening to you Simon. They are listening to a fun-filled episode of fact orally listening to you Simon? They are listening to a fun-filled episode of Factorally. Factorally? Indeed I do hosted by you Bruce Fielding and you Simon

Wells. That's us. Bruce and I are both professional voiceover artists. We are. We talk for a living. Yeah we do we kind of explain things and sell things and tell people things that are useful. Yes. As opposed to what we do on this podcast. Which is well sometimes useful. This is the antidote to all the useful stuff. We pick a subject each week, something seemingly mundane and trivial, and we chat about it and we explore it and we draw out all the interesting useful useless facts from it. Exactly. All the things that you might want to use should you ever come across, let's say, a tennis ball.

Yes. Or you could come across as a tennis ball, actually. After this episode. That's because today we're talking about tennis. That we are. Anyone for tennis? Do you play tennis, Bruce? I... See, I have played tennis.

Right. The trouble is I also used to play a lot of I was in the school squash team Okay, so I'm more wristy than then follow through are you I've always thought that about you Yeah, so so basically squash is all about the wrist right whereas tennis is a lot more about the entire arm. Yes Okay, so I used to just overhear quite a lot or put lots of spin on all the time. Okay Okay, but you have played I have played I know how to play. Grand. My very first tennis racket was Enormously heavy and not only was it heavy on its own it came with a wooden tennis racket press that was made of wood and

Like pig iron or something. Yeah, and it had a lever on it So you could actually like press the tennis racket that kept it straight. Oh, is that what those things are for? Yes. They sort of, oh, I see, like a vice. Stop it from warping. Ah, I'd always wondered.

Yeah. Never thought to ask. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Fact number one. There we go. Fact number one, please.

And you, Simon, do you play tennis? Have you played tennis? Have you played tennis? I have played tennis in as much that I went to a local park with my dad when I was a kid. We had a bit of a knockabout, decided that neither of us liked it and never played again. So what is tennis? Tennis is a game and it's played with a ball and a racket on a court. Yeah. But that's not how it started. No. How did it start? It started as a... okay there were a lot of people when I finish this podcast with Au Revoir, who think that I'm French, and I'm not.

No, you're not. But the thing is, I am slightly disparaging about the French quite a lot. So it's my nod to say I appreciate and respect the French. Okay, fine. When I end a podcast with Au Revoir. Well done. But it was invented by French monks.

Yes. And it was it was a game called J'ai de Poum. J'ai de Poum. So a game of the hand. That's right. And it was basically knocking a ball in cloisters. And then that sort of made its way into various different levels of using a hand. I used to play a game at school called Eton Fives, which is... I wasn't at Eton. Right. Just clarify. But we had an Eton Fives court and that was based on a wall outside Chapel in Eton. Oh yes, I recognize that. It was also called the Eton Wall game. Yeah, like squash but without the bat. Except with four of you. Oh, like squash but without the bat. Except with four of you.

Oh, there are four of you. And wearing gloves. Right. So that was very much a sort of a follow on from the Julepum. And so literally a game with your hand. Yeah. But then that morphed into something called real tennis.

Yes. Tennis Real. Yes. And there are various, still various real tennis courts or tennis royale. And there are various, still various real tennis courts all over the UK and in fact France as well. Yeah there's one quite near me in Hampton Court Palace. Yes because Henry VIII was very fond of the game of real tennis. Real tennis also known as royal tennis, it was very popular with the royalty and the upper classes. Maybe because they were the only people who could afford to have the purpose-built court, because you sort of have these diagonal

walls don't you, that you sort of bounce the ball up on these walls and then off the roof. Well it's to replicate a cloister. So there's like the roof of a cloister on the left hand, well it depends on which way you look at it, on one side. And then there's sort of like walls that represent the buttresses. That's right. And so you replicate this particular cloister to play the game. Yeah. And it's got like a droopy net as opposed to a net

that goes straight across and you play with a racket that's a bit sort of teardrop-y shaped. Like a paddle, isn't it? I think originally when they moved on from just using the hands and the gloves Yes, they sort of went through a phase of something that looked a bit like a table tennis paddle Yes, and then a bat and a very un bouncy ball. Yes. It was quite solid, wasn't it? Well, the thing is that because there's so few places that actually play real tennis

Most of the balls are made by people who play the game Yeah most of the balls are made by people who play the game. Yeah. Who basically get a load of cork or feathers or whatever and they sort of tie it up in a piece of linen and then they tie it a bit more and then they tie it a bit more and then they make it rounder and rounder and rounder and then they cover it in tennis ball covering. Oh I see, so it looks like a tennis ball but it's a lot more solid.

Exactly, so if you drop it it just doesn't bounce. Just thuds. Yeah exactly, but it's a fun game and the champions tend to last quite a long time. Just because there are so few people that play it there's no one to challenge them? Well kind of yes, I guess that's true. The longest tennis championship I it was like 33 years. Oh really? Yes. Who held the tennis championship for the longest time?

33 years is quite a long time. Yes. But that's real tennis, not what we know as lawn tennis. And I believe real tennis has the longest running regular competition of any other sport. Yes, it's been going a while. Yeah. So that came around in the 12th century by the sport. Yes, it's been going a while.

So that came around in the 12th century. By the 14th, 15th century it began to be known as tennis, after being called J'ai de Pomme. Tennis comes from the old French word tenir, meaning to take or receive. Or hold. And apparently you would shout that as you serve in a sort of a take this kind of manner. So it was, as you say, it was real tennis for a very very long time, popular with the royalty, popular all over Europe. It declined slightly in England during the time of the Puritans and then sort of through the rest of Europe around the time of Napoleon. Again the royalty was sort of in all sorts of shtook and royal tennis, real tennis sort of became almost abandoned. It wasn't until a couple of hundred years later in the 1800s

that someone came along and invented lawn tennis. Well, you say someone, great name. Yes. Which one are you going with? I'm going with Major Walter Clopton Wingfield. Excellent. Good. Now I've seen disputes. There were a couple of people who came up with a very similar game around a very similar time. Your fella actually got a patent for a brand new design of court to play this game on, which was an hourglass shape.

Oh, okay. But he didn't get the patent for the game, just the court. And there are actually records of another couple of people coming up with something that looks just like lawn tennis about 10, 15 years earlier than him in the 1860s. Two chaps called Major Harry Jem, also a major, and his Spanish merchant friend, Augurio Pereira, and these two fellows started playing a game that was sort of a mixture of a couple of other racket games that were around at the time and playing it on grass with a net in between, et cetera.

that were around at the time and playing it on grass with a net in between etc. And they claim that they invented lawn tennis so it depends on which one of those two you agree with. But these two chaps definitely did come up with the world's first tennis club in Leamington Spa in 1874. Very nice. They haven't got as nice names as Major Walter Clopson Wingfield though have they? No they certainly haven't. And then this this bit's really confused me actually but I was sort of thinking of the the rules of tennis the fact that it's a standardized thing you know it's played the same everywhere you go. Who first standardized the rules of tennis, the fact that it's a standardized thing, you know, it's played the same everywhere you go. Who first standardized the rules of lawn tennis? Well, obviously it was the Marlbone Cricket Club. Well, yes, of course, because they had a lawn. Yes, exactly. They did a bit of

everything there. They did cricket, they did tennis, they did croquet, they did all sorts of things. Yes, archery. Archery, everything. They came up with the official rules in 1875, and those have been the same ever since. Interesting. Because it was an international sport in 1913, and there was the establishment of the International Lawn Tennis Federation. Ilft.

Yes, exactly. Catchy. And then it was an Olympic sport from 1896. Really? As early as that? Yeah. I didn't know that. So yes, it's all over the place, isn't it? We'll always think of it as an inherently English sport. Yes, except the Americans don't and the French don't and everybody else in the world thinks of it as not an English sport. Exactly, yeah. Although Wimbledon is the home, if you like, the place where lawn tennis kind of took off. Yes, yeah.

But that's only on lawns. Exactly, yeah. I find it interesting that the home of Wimbledon tennis isn't really in Wimbledon. Yes, that's true actually. It's on the outskirts. Yes, yes, it's near Wimbledon. It started off in Wimbledon. The club is called the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Again, those two things seem to go together hand in hand. And that was originally founded at the offices of the Field magazine. Okay. Which wrote about all things fieldy, field sports and the like. Cool. And they had their offices right in the centre of Wimbledon so they founded the Wimbledon Club in 1868 originally for croquet but then lawn tennis came along and they took that up rather quickly and so it's sort of natural that they started the championships and you know the whole

thing has just become known as Wimbledon since then. There's a lot of courts there though right? There are quite a lot of courts there though, right? There are quite a few, aren't there? They had to move further out of town in order to accommodate the size, the space they needed. The amount of courts they had. Yeah. I mean, they've got something like,

18 championship grass courts, and then they've got another like 20 practice courts on grass. Cracky. And then they've got eight American clay courts okay so it's about 46 courts and then there are six indoor courts as well all right and there's one right in the center what do they call that one the middle court can't remember now because they also have court number one that they said so it's like it's battling for the title yes exactly yeah the more I can't remember now. Because they also have court number one, don't they?

So it's like it's battling for the title. Yes, exactly. The more important you are the closest to the centre, you get to play. Yes, you start at the outskirts and work your way in. Exactly, yes. So you talked about the standardisation. Do you know what the standards are? They're quite high

So there are rules about racket length and Net height and things like that. Right. Okay, so you can play tennis on a number of different surfaces So we talked about lawns obviously grass and we talked about we did a lot of talking about Wimbledon in our Episode on grass actually. Yes we did. We mentioned it briefly in berries as well. We did didn't we? Because of strawberries and cream. So the so tennis is when it's played on grass it's faster. Right in as much that the ball bounces and skips off. It skids. Yeah exactly it skids. Whereas something like a clay court it it holds onto the ball

slightly. I see, yeah. And you can also get hard courts as well. And different competitions play on different. So for example the French Open is played on a clay court. And the US Open and the Australian Open is played on a hard court. And then you've got two rules about racket length. You know the rackets have to be a maximum of 29 inches long and the net in a tennis court is always three foot six in the middle. What the top of the net? Yes to the top of the white. I've always found it quite interesting the terminology that's used, you know the way the games are set up, you know, game set and match and

Yes. The number of this you have to win in order to get that and Yes. So on and so on. And particularly the scoring system has always intrigued me. Ah, it's because you don't own a watch. Okay. So the scoring system is based on the clock. it's the quarter hours it's 1530 it was 45 but they reduced it to 40 yeah so it was originally 1530 45 game I see

right I searched all over the place and I couldn't find any definitive answer as to why those are the scores instead of just one two three four it's 1530 it's because they would they would sort of move a clock face to show the scores. Oh, okay, fine. So the score card was sort of a clock face. It was a clock face. That makes sense.

And then you have an egg. Yes, love. This is, I don't like it when this happens, when you sort of find something saying there's no definitive answer, but it could be because of this. One suggestion is that love, the word that's used to refer to zero in tennis, comes from French l'oeuf meaning egg because

allegedly according to some the image of an egg used to be used to represent nothing or zero because it's roughly roughly zero shaped. That seems a bit tenuous to me but I can't imagine a sport you know an umpire shouting out egg to mean zero but yeah possibly well yeah sports people especially posh sports people they're very weird people the the term juiceuce comes from the French a deux de jeu, meaning two points away from game. Okay. So you have to win two consecutive points in order to win the game because you've drawn. Ah, I didn't know. I've learned something.

Hooray. Job done. Mic drop. Simon out. Because I thought it was about deuce, you know, it's like... What the deuce? Yes, what the deuce is this? Yes. You mentioned the French Open there. Yes. There are quite a lot of different tournaments which again not not being a player or a particular enthusiast, I don't understand. But there are cups, there are tournaments, there are Grand Slams, there are Opens.

Okay, well stop. Do you know what a Grand Slam is? No, I don't. What is it? Okay, it's basically winning all four major championships. So you could win the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. It's funny they don't call it like the British Open, they call it Wimbledon. Yes that's right yeah. So I looked into the why they call the Open. Apparently there were the Opens started in the 1960s and before that you had very separate competitions for professionals and for amateurs and the amateurs seemed to have a lot more sort of tournaments and different varieties of tournament than the professionals did and the professionals got the hump and said well we want to join in with some of their competitions and so they formed this

competition which was open to all so that's where the open comes from. So I guess that would have been a sort of a hangover from cricket with sort of gentlemen and players. Yes exactly that yeah Yeah, so you get the US open French open Australian open Etc and then you get the Davis Cup Which I did a little bit of looking into why is it called the Davis Cup who was Davis? It's named after Steve Davis the snooker player not quite no An American fella okay in 1898 Dwight F. Davis of the Harvard University tennis team created a tournament in which essentially the American tennis players wanted to show the British tennis players who were best. cross-continental rivalry. He set up this tournament between the two countries.

The first match was held in Boston in Massachusetts in 1900 and they started giving a cup, this beautiful sort of silver-gilt cup to the winner. It was originally called the International Lawn Tennis Challenge and it was renamed the Davis Cup following the death of Dwight Davis in 1945. They had the 100th anniversary of it in 1999 in which 130 different countries took part. Wow that's half the countries in the world. That's slightly more than half the countries in the world. So what started off as a little bit of rivalry between America and England now it involves half the countries in the world. So what started off as a little bit of rivalry between

America and England, now it involves half the countries in the world. So not bad. That's not bad at all is it? I mean when I played tennis I had to pick up my own balls. You didn't have someone picking up your balls for you Bruce. I know, I know, but at Wimbledon they have about 250 ball boys and girls. Oh yes they do don't they? About a thousand people apply. Really? Yeah. Wow. And sort of about 170 are selected from year 9 and 10 applicants so what would they be? 14 and 15 year olds. New balls please. Well exactly. Well should we get onto balls? I think we should. Tell us about balls. Well they're made of sort of like a latex base with a fluffy outer and they bounce quite well and they were black until about 1967.

They were black until about 1967. Okay. When it became very popular on TV. 1967, I think there was just colour TV just coming in. And the controller of BBC Two was a guy called David Attenborough. I've heard of him. Yeah, he's got a brother who you might have heard of as well. And so he decided that at Wimbledon they would introduce yellow balls,

which would be easier to follow on television. I see. And that's why we have yellow balls today. So that was David Attenborough. Yeah. Here in the wilds of Wimbledon you can see a yellow tennis ball. Yes, so balls. It's quite interesting. At the American Open, at the US open. They have two different sorts of balls

They have extra duty balls and regular duty balls Right and the regular duty balls are used by the women. Hmm, and the extra duty balls are played by the men, right? That's because the men's balls are fluffier You never thought I'd say that on the podcast, did you? Men's balls are fluffier. This is a family show. So in the US Open, because they play with these extra duty balls, when they start to hit them, the the felt kind of raises itself to slow down the ball. The idea is that actually what you want in the men's game is to be able to follow it. And with a fast

ball, you never see where everything is going. Oh I see. So there's a bit of sort of like air friction. More air friction in the extra duty balls because they're fluffier. Creates drag. Yeah, exactly. So men's balls create drag. Yes.

Good. Let's just say that, shall we? Let's. Let's leave it there. What do you wear when you play tennis? I would say white shorts and a t-shirt. So at Wimbledon there are very strict rules. You have to wear almost entirely white. You're allowed a tiny bit of splash of color. Right. But the color has to be no more than three centimeters I think in width. But in other competitions you can wear anything you like because obviously the sports manufacturers are keen to market

every year a different outfit so that they can sell more kit. That's unless you write children's stories. So if you write children's stories for a living, you're allowed to play tennis in the nude. I, no, I think that's gonna need some expansion, Bruce. Okay, you've ever heard of Enid Blyton? Yes. So Enid Blyton, she had a house with a tennis court in it.

Right. And it was quite common for her to be playing tennis in the nude. Huh, how eccentric. It's a thing. Is it? And she and her husband would invite people over to also play tennis in the nude. I always thought she was a bit weird. Yes.

Then there's Lacoste, which was named after the 1933 French tennis champion René Lacoste. That was that one right? Yeah, he was actually nicknamed because he was very tenacious on court. Yeah. So he was nicknamed the crocodile. And that's why Lacoste clothing has a crocodile as its logo. Yep. Brilliant.

He sort of teamed up with a guy called André Giliéier who's a knitwear expert and they launched the first polo shirt. Huh. Lately known as the L-1212. He also patented the first tubular steel tennis racket. Did he? Yeah which was then acquired by Wilson Sporting Goods. Right. As the Wilson T-2000. T-2000? Oh gosh it was a Terminator jacket. It's the Terminator tennis racket. Terminator tennis racket. So the idea of, you know, a tennis champion launching a brand or a product or something, like the Lacoste shirt. Yeah. Sharapova launched her own line of something. Oh yes. Can you guess what it was?

Sharapova, no. Okay I'll give you a clue. It was called Sugapova. Okay. And Sugapova was a range of sweets. Oh yes. So Maria Sharapova launched her own range of chocolates and sweets. Wonderful. I discovered, I didn't deliberately go down this avenue, but I kept on seeing this mentioned, there were a few tennis related deaths. Deaths? What, being hit by a tennis ball? No, well one of them was, but not all. As I was sort of looking at real tennis back in the medieval times and its popularity with the royalties there have been a few kings that have been killed as a result of tennis. Two French one Scottish. Apparently Louis X of France had a game of, well, a game of Jeux de Pomme, but you know, forerunner of tennis. Back in the 1100s, he suffered a chill after playing outdoors and died from it. Charles VIII of France hit his head whilst having a game of tennis and died as a result

of it. And James I of Scotland kind of died because of tennis. There was an attempt on his life and he was running away from some assassins and he hid in a sewer tunnel on his property, which he had previously plugged up because his tennis balls kept on falling down the drain and running away. So he snuck down this sewer drainage system to hide but he couldn't get through because he had previously had it blocked up so kind of as a result of tennis he was assassinated. But yeah these these few things just kept on cropping up. Charles VIII was I think he was known as Charles the affable. Was he? Yeah. What a lovely fellow. There's Charles the mad, Charles the bold, there's all sorts

of Charles, weird Charles's in France. Another, I mean another thing you can use a tennis ball for apart from killing kings. Sure. Is to cure snoring okay if you sew a tennis ball into the back of your pajamas right then it means that you can't lay on your back hmm so you're always on your side so actually you don't snore how interesting yes and. Yes and it has been used quite frequently just as like a doctor's prescription sew one tennis ball into your pajamas. Really? Yeah. That's brilliant. I'm sure many a dog

owner has chucked a tennis ball around for their pooch. I do. There you go. So snoring and playing with dogs. Yes. And then obviously when you win a tournament you get paid loads of money as well as getting the trophy. Yes of course. You also get a prize. Yes. It's not always money. Okay. Roger Federer when he won the Swiss Open He was given a cow If I you want it twice and was given two cows Okay, so the foot the first cow he Basically took down and had it rendered into steak and things But the second one he kept one called Desiree fine

So he had it he had a cow that he won for tennis. Do we know why? I think the Swiss like giving people cows. Well okay. Why not? Good. We talked briefly about tennis rackets. Do you know what the strings are made of?

What they used to be made of? I want to say cat gut. That's what people think. Yes but it's not. But this is factorily. So well done for saying cat gut. Thank you. What you should have said is sheep guts. Ah right okay. I feel like I should have a a QI style klaxon going off behind me for saying cat gut. Yes, yes. Sheep gut. Oh, do you know why they're called rackets? Because they make a noise? Nope. The word racket comes from an Arabic word rakat meaning the palm of your hand.

Oh, okay. Because when rackets were first used in real tennis, they were used to replace your hand that was used in the game. The poem. The poem, yes. Interesting. There have been lots of other forms of racket and ball games that are based on, if you go back far enough, they go to Jot de Pomme. You know, like I was talking about Easton Fives. Yes.

But you know, there's modern stuff as well, like paddle. Oh yes, okay. Which is played with the glass walls. If you've seen people playing paddle. Yeah. And that's sort of like another iteration of tennis. And then there's mini tennis, which is where you play up to where the fault line is

in the middle of the court. Then there's wheelchair tennis which is actually really quite exciting to watch and the balls allowed to bounce twice okay in wheelchair tennis and then you've got things like pickleball in America and racquetball and of course squash came from the same kind of place. The same roots. And then you've got table tennis. Of course you have, ping pong. So table tennis is quite interesting, ping pong, whiff whiff, whatever you want to call it. Originally, because it was British, they used to use champagne corks for balls and books for a net. Okay. So basically after dinner you clear off the dining table and you scrabble around on the floor for one of the numerous

champagne corks that they're flowing out the bottles while you were having dinner and then you get a whole bunch of books out of the library and you'd make them into like a Wall in the middle. Hmm, and you would use a cigar box as a bat You'd use a champagne cork as a ball. And you'd use books as a net. Brilliant. That that sounds like the sort of thing that could only have come about after a drunken evening of revelry. Yeah. And it could only be a British drunken evening revelry. There was one of the top amateur tennis players from 1949 through to the 1950s. And he was a he was a finalist at the French Open.

He was a semi finalist at the Australian Open. I mean, he was pretty good. And his name was Art Tappy Larson. Tappy in inverted commas. Sure. He's very eccentric. Because he is called Tappy because he used to tap things out of superstition from the net post to to the umpire stands doorways and even to his opponents if they got close enough you just tap everything. Yeah, and for strategic advice at various different points when he was playing when he was about to serve he would cock his head and listen to an invisible eagle.

What? That's bizarre. I mean he was unusual. Wow. But he was a good friend of the editor of the world of tennis and he wrote unusual stories that were published. He's just a very interesting guy. Probably not entirely sane. Well, pitch-rather. But he was a really good tennis player. Just he just happened to want to tap everything. Yeah, and listening to invisible eagles. Well, well done Tappy. I tell you what I could actually put the remarkable story of art Tappy Larson in the blog in our show notes. Oh, you certainly could. Now where would people find that I wonder that would be a place called factorally.com. Factorally.com? Mm-hmm. If you go to the blog, you'll find all sorts of stuff about tennis. And in fact, about everything that we've done a podcast on.

Yeah. But I'll soon be taking over Wikipedia. The only thing is I would suggest that you leave yourself a bit of time. Yes. Because, yeah, it takes up time. So Simon do you have any amazing records for us? Do you know what I actually have quite a lot of mundane records with a couple of amazing ones. So start with an

amazing one. Fine okay. The longest marathon of playing tennis in singles, 82 hours. I assumed that wasn't without a break. 82 hours? Yeah. This was achieved by a couple of Australian fellas, Glen Pope and Jamie Blair, just last year in 2024. And they attempted to break the previous record as a fundraising event for November. So they set out to play tennis for 82 hours. I guess they were allowed to sleep and things like that but yes they played for quite a long time. I know about the longest continuous tennis match. Oh go on I haven't got that

one. Have you not? No. I think I watched it, it was at Wimbledon and it was about, they couldn't get to a tiebreaker or anything, they were just going match after match after match for 11 hours and five minutes. Oh my goodness. Yeah it was a long game. Yikes. I mean into the night practically. Yeah yeah wow. I found the longest time for someone to balance a tennis racket on a tennis ball. In 2015, a fellow called Mark Evans from Wales managed to balance a tennis racket on a tennis ball for one hour, three minutes, 53 seconds. While holding the tennis ball, I presume. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Someone else from Arizona balanced a tennis racket on the tip of their finger for 59 minutes and 9 seconds.

You know, people have got some time on their hands. Oh, and tennis balls? And that as well, yes. Goodness. I found this one was mysteriously undetailed, but I need to throw it in. The world record for the most people playing tennis on one quarter any one time yes 684 so that's

divided 242 yes per side and I couldn't get any information on where this was or when this was it just was Wow, I don't know if all of those people were you know like the world's biggest game of doubles or whether there were sort of people standing in the wings and they ran on as someone else ran off I don't know I could not find any details at all but 684 people on a court having a game of tennis. Wow. Which sounds chaotic. I've got a met I've got a record for the fastest serve. Oh go on. So the fastest serve ever recorded in tennis was 163.7 miles an hour. Good grief.

That's pretty quick. I mean you normally see them coming up through the hundreds. Yeah. Coming up to 800 but 163.7. Crikey that's gonna hurt if it gets you in the wrong spot. It's gonna catch fire. And the youngest Wimbledon competitor was a tennis player called Mite Klima, Austrian, and they were 13 years old in 1907. Really? Yeah. Gosh. 13. Can you imagine playing at Wimbledon at 13 years old? Wow. Well that's about it for me. I have run out of tennis based facts. Yes, all of my facts have been served. I have no new balls. I have loved doing this episode. Oh very good. People at home will be thinking what the juice. Oh no. I think this is a good point to end. I think so. So thank you ever so much for listening to this episode and we look

forward to seeing you next week. Indeed. When we'll have another fabulous fistful of facts on... Factorally. Goodbye. Au revoir.