{"id":30800,"date":"2011-09-17T21:14:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T21:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-official-rule-book-of-tennis-is-35-pages-long\/"},"modified":"2018-12-06T10:17:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T17:17:43","slug":"the-official-rule-book-of-tennis-is-35-pages-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-official-rule-book-of-tennis-is-35-pages-long\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-30800 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-official-rule-book-of-tennis-is-35-pages-long\/attachment\/30801\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/tumblr_lroqzfkwe11qescwho1_640-100x100.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The official rule book of tennis is 35 pages long. For the most part, the document is a case study in compulsive precision. Here are a few of the exacting guidelines: If a tournament is played above 4,000 feet, pressureless tennis balls must be &ldquo;acclimatized&rdquo; for at least 60 days at the local altitude.<br \/>\nThe cord holding up the net cannot be thicker than &amp;frac13;-inch in diameter, and must be covered by a white band between 2 and 2.5 inches wide.<br \/>\nThe frame of the racket cannot exceed 29 inches in total length.<br \/>\nThe organizers of tennis tournaments must announce in advance their ball-change policy.<br \/>\nAmid all this punctiliousness, however, the rulebook contains one glaring omission: There are no rules about the surface of the court. While the boundaries of the space are carefully specified \u2014 it must be a rectangle, 78 feet by 27 feet, with a one-inch-wide center service line \u2014 there are zero references to the different materials on which the game can be played. It&rsquo;s as if clay, grass, and hard court don&rsquo;t exist, as if the composition of the playing field doesn&rsquo;t matter. (via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grantland.com\/story\/_\/id\/6906922\/the-physics-grass-clay-cement\">Jonah Lehrer on the effects of different tennis surfaces &#8211; Grantland<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The official rule book of tennis is 35 pages long. For the most part, the document is a case study in compulsive precision. Here are a few of the exacting guidelines: If a tournament is played above 4,000 feet, pressureless tennis balls must be &ldquo;acclimatized&rdquo; for at least 60 days at the local altitude. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[1538],"class_list":["post-30800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","tag-humane-games","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-80M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30802,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30800\/revisions\/30802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}