Pro Tennis Chat

The scoring system in tennis is unique.  When you first learn how to play tennis, you need to learn the correct way of keeping score.  Beginner tennis players do not have the benefit of a umpire or line judge, so keeping an accurate score is very important.   This article by Brandon Gabel illustrates some of the problems you may encounter when you first start playing tennis.

Tennis has a wacky scoring system. In fact it is downright confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is actually quite simple. The basic scoring system follows a four point game. However, rather than being scored 0… 1… 2… 3… 4… game, the points are scored love… 15… 30… 40… game. In other words, you must win four points to win a game. To win a set you must win six games. In a singles match you and your opponent alternate serving games until someone has won the match. Most tennis matches are two out of three sets, except certain professional matches, which are three out of five sets.

Easy enough, right? The difficulty is what happens when your opponent also wins points during the same game. To remedy any confusion, the server’s score is always called first. For example, if both players have one point in a game, the score would be 15-15, or in tennis lingo, 15-all. Now, if the server loses the next point the score would be 15-30 (not 30-15, this would be the case if the server had won the point)

To make things more confusing you must win a game by a margin of two. Therefore, if you get to 40-40 (also known as “deuce”) then one player must win 2 points in a row to win the game. This is where the “ad system” comes into play.

If a player wins a point at deuce they now have the “advantage”. If the server wins the deuce point the score would be “ad-in”, effectively meaning “advantage server.” If the returner wins the deuce point the score would be “ad-out”, or “advantage returner.” Once you have the advantage, you only need to win one more point to win the game. If you lose the point, the score returns back to deuce.

Let’s work through a mock game. Assume that I am serving the first game, and you are returning. We start the game at love-love (ie: 0-0). You blister a return and win the first point. I call the score correctly as “love-15″ (remember the server always calls his score first, with love meaning zero). In retaliation, on the next point I hit an ace (an un-returnable serve) to make the score 15-15 (ie: 15-all). On the next point we have a long rally that ends with me hitting a volley winner to make the score 30-15, but then you come back with a forehand winner to make the score 30-all. I double fault to make the score 30-40. You hit another great return to win the game. In tennis lingo you have just “broken my serve.”

Just as a game must be won by a margin of two points, a set must be won by a margin of two games. Now you could imagine that if both players had strong serves the set may go on forever, or at least until someone finally broke the other player’s serve. In fact, this is what happens in the final set of a Wimbledon match where set scores can get as high as 13-11, 14-12, etc! However, in all other matches you would play a tiebreak once the set score reached 6-6.

The tiebreak is one of the more confusing parts of tennis. The first point of a tiebreak is served from the deuce side, just like the start of a normal game. However, the player serving only serves one point. Once the first point is over, the serve returns back to the other player. Now here is where it gets very confusing! That player will serve two points, but they serve the first point from the ad side of the court, not the deuce side! The second point is then served from the deuce side. The next two service points then go back to the other player, so on and so forth. In other words, after the first point, players switch serving every two points. Furthermore, in a normal tiebreak, players switch sides of the court after every six points. The first player to seven points wins the tiebreak, but they must get to seven by a margin of two.

One final note on the scoring system… Most matches you play will not have an umpire on the court keeping track of your score (this is generally reserved only for high level tournament play). Since you and your opponent will be keeping score you may run into disagreements about what the score actually is. Should this occur the proper course of action is to return to the closest previous score that you both agree on, and resume play from that point.

Congratulations! You’ve just managed to work through a very complicated and confusing scoring system. Go out and practice until you feel comfortable keeping track of the score.