A simple explanation of tennis scoring

So in this game, this tennis game, there are many things to remember about tennis scoring, but I’ll keep it simple. First of all, let me quickly explain the calendar year in pro tennis and all the tournaments involved, because some tournaments have different scoring.

The tennis season goes from January to late November/early December, and there are four major tournaments, called grand slams. These are, by month and city, the Australian Open (January, Melbourne), the French Open (May, Paris, also known as Roland Garros), Wimbledon (June, London) and the US Open (August, New York). On the men’s side, these tournaments use the best of five sets tennis scoring system, whereas every other tournament besides, men’s and women’s, uses the best of three sets tennis scoring system.

So it’s a neat little hierarchy that we have in this tennis game. We will take the most common, three set tennis scoring system. In other words, the first player to win two sets, wins the match. Now there are actually three ways you can win a set: if you win six games, and your opponent has not reached more than four, then you win the set. In other words, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4 fall into this category. However, if you and your opponent find each other at five games each, you have to win by two games, i.e. the player must win 7-5 now. Scenario three, if nobody wins 7-5 and it goes to 6-6 (six all), then the players must play a tie-breaker.

Before we get to the tennis scoring of a tie-breaker, let me first explain the scoring in a game. Each point in tennis is started by the serve, which is a stroke completed by tossing the ball directly above your head and hitting the ball into the diagonally opposing service box on the other side of the net. A player gets two chances to serve the ball in the court on every point, and if they miss both serves, it is called a “double fault” and this player loses the point.

In a game, when the score is called out after every point, it is always the player who is serving (the server) whose score is called first. Now for some reason, the ancient lords of tennis did not believe in simple point scoring, so we have a slightly mixed up system, but it keeps it interesting. Instead of having one point, you have fifteen. Instead of two, you have thirty. In the place of three, there is forty.

Therefore, if you are serving and you win the first point, the score is then 15-0. And we don’t say zero, we say “love.” So the score, in words, is fifteen love. It is obviously not necessary to say, “fifteen love to me,” because the server’s score is always called out first, and it is therefore a given as to who is ahead in the game. And so it goes on, and after each point, players move to the other side of the little centre mark which is on the baseline. Therefore, if each player has won two points, the score is then thirty all. Let’s say the server loses the next point, then the score is 30-40. However, if the server manages to win this point, we do not say 40-all, we say deuce. In this situation, at deuce, one player must win by two points to win the game. If player 1 wins the point at deuce, the score is then “advantage player 1.” We don’t really say this, however, we rather say, “my ad,” “your ad,” or “ad in” if the server has the advantage, and “ad out” if the receiver has the advantage. So if whomever has the advantage wins the point, that player then wins the game.

Pertaining to switching sides of the court, this happens on every odd game. So after the first game, it is obviously 1-0, and players switch to the other side of the net. Thereafter, after every two games, players switch sides of the court. Therefore if the score is 4-3, the players must switch sides because the score adds up to an odd number, 7.

Now a tie-breaker is something that was only invented later in the history of the game, to shorten the game, so that sets don’t carry on to end up at something like 24-22 or 25-23, which often happened before the implementation of the tie-breaker. Therefore, the tie-breaker uses the more common point tennis scoring system, i.e, 1,2,3 etc. It gets a little complicated with the serving though, so bear with me.

First of all, let me explain the sides of the court. Let’s split each player court into two halves, done by using the little center mark at the back of each court. Now when a player is facing the net and standing right on the center mark, the half of the court on this player’s right-hand side is the “deuce court,” so named because you will always find yourself player the deuce point from this side. Following this rule then, the other side, the left-hand side, is the “ad court,” because you play the advantage point from that side.

The player who serves first in a tie-breaker gets only one point to serve. So after, this point, it is 1-0 to somebody, and then a regular interval of switching servers after every two points ensues. Players switch to the other side of the net after the total score accumulates to multiples of six (6, 12, 18, etc) and the first player to get to 7 wins the tie-breaker. However, it must be won by two points, so if it’s 6-6, then the score must be 8-6 or 9-7 or even 15-13 for somebody to win the tie-breaker.

After a tie-breaker has been completed, players switch sides of the court again because the total score is odd, and you must remember who served the first point in the tie-breaker, because the other player will start serving in the next set.

So in grand slams, on the men’s side, it is best of five sets, and it is therefore the same tennis scoring, but a player must win three sets instead of two to win the match. In all grand slams except the US Open, every set except for the last (men’s and women’s) is decided by a tie-breaker. The last set in a grand slam match is decided the old-fashioned way, where a player must win by two games to clinch the set and the match.

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