rackets, Game for two or four players with ball and racket on a four-walled court. Rackets is played with a hard ball in a relatively large court (approximately 9 × 18 m), unlike the related games of squash and racquetball. As in these other games, the object of rackets is to bounce, or rebound, the ball off the front and other walls in such a way as to defeat an opponent’s attempt to reach and return it. It appears to have developed in England in the early 19th century.