Palla (game)

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Palla (Italian for ball) is a traditional Tuscan ball game played in villages between Siena and Grosseto. It is also called palla EH! (or pallaeh!) because players call out eh! before serving.

Small handmade balls contain a lead pellet wrapped in rubber and wool with a leather cover. The game is played by facing teams who strike (not catch) the ball with either a bare or gloved hand. Courts are marked out with painted lines on town streets, but there is no net, and players can move between sides. Adjacent buildings, objects, and sometimes spectators, are considered "in play." Play does stop for oncoming automobiles. Similar to real tennis, a second bounce can result in a "chase" rather than an outright point, marked in chalk where the ball stops rolling.

Scoring is identical to that of tennis (15-30-40-game). In the variant called pallaventuno (or palla 21) each game counts as 7, and a set is won with three games (7 for the first, 14 for the second, and 21 for the third, hence the name given to the game). In the other variant, games are simply counted in progression (game 1, game 2). Pallacorda (or palla della corda) is an extinct form of the game where a cord was strung across the street. Pisa, Prato, Rome, Siena, and various Tuscan towns still have streets named via Pallacorda or via Della Corda.