If a player whose score is 40 wins the next point, they generally win the game, adding one to their game score. If the score reaches 40-40, this is described as ‘deuce’. If the score is even at one or two points each, it is announced as ‘fifteen all’ or ’30 all’. It is believed that this might derive from the French word ‘l’oeuf’, meaning ‘egg’. If a player has not won a point in the game, their zero score is described as ‘love’ in English. The score will be announced with the score of the player serving given first, so it might be 15-0, or 30-15. The second point won by a player increases their score to 30, and the next brings them to 40. As briefly explained above, this does not normally add just one to the player’s score. Every time a rally is won, a winning serve is struck, or a double-fault (two successive serves which fail to land in the required area) is served, one of the players scores a point. When a match starts, one player begins the points by serving for a whole game. Two or three sets wins the match, depending upon the format. 6 games give them a set, but they must have a 2-game lead.Ī ‘tie-break’ game is played at 6-6. In that case, they would need to win two successive points to win the game. If a player wins the next point when they are on 40, they score 1 game – but only if their opponent is not on 40 too. In brief, within each game scores increase from 0 to 15 to 30 to 40 as points are won. So how do we read the scores in a tennis match?

Whatever the real reason is, the quirky and archaic scoring system seems to be here to stay. Some have suggested that the scores represent positions on a clock face, whilst others believe that they represent how far you were allowed to move forward into the court when serving in a precursor of the modern game. There is a lot of debate as to the origin of the tennis scoring system. In tennis, whilst all points are in truth worth the same, they are not represented by the addition of a consistent number to the scoreboard. In most racquet sports, one point is awarded when a rally is won. In almost every other sport there is a consistent number of points awarded for a particular method of scoring. For someone who is not familiar with the game, the scoring system used in tennis must seem very strange.

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