by Jade Twits

Created on: November 24, 2009   Last Updated: November 26, 2009

Whoever invented how to keep the score in tennis must be having a good laugh up in heaven (or hell) right now at some very confused tennis players and spectators. Why didn't they decide to use a simpler scoring system where you got 1 point for winning a point in tennis, instead of 15? Whether you want to play the game or simply want to know what is going on when you are watching you'll need to know how to keep score. To find out how, read on.

Point Score

The way the points system works in tennis can be confusing for those starting out playing or watching tennis. A point is won by a player either 'hitting a winner', a shot that goes in the court which no one can get to, or by the opposition 'stuffing up' by missing the ball, hitting it out, or hitting it into the net. However when the first point is won the score isn't 1-0 it is 15-love. In fact in tennis instead of scoring 0,1,2,3,4 as you would in a sport such as soccer you would score 'love'(0), 15, 30, 40, game.

The server's score must always be named first and will generally be called out by the server in unprofessional tennis before each point. So if the score was 40-15 (or you could think of it as 3-1), and you were serving and had the 40 points you would call out 40-15, but if the opposition was serving they would call out 15-40. However if the score is even with the players or teams both on 15 points or both on 30 points you call out '15-all' or '30 all' instead of 15-15 or 30-30.

However everything changes if the score reaches '40 all'. Rather then calling this score 40-all, which might induce some strange looks your way from more experienced players, you should call out the proper name deuce (pronounce 'juice', which can often lead to inventive scoring such as orange DEUCE). It is very important in tennis that the winner of the game has to win by two points, which leads to a strange situation at the score of deuce. Instead of the next point winner winning the game the score will be called out by the server as 'your advantage' or 'my advantage', depending on who won the point. If the person who has the advantage wins another point, then the game is won by them. If they don't win the point the score goes back to deuce and the players fight for the 'advantage' again. Therefore it can be seen that there can be very long 'deuces'.

Game Score

If you understand the above then you've probably got the bulk of confusion out of the way. Games are much easier to score, in a simple numeric points system, with

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