Tennis Scoring Rules

Although scoring in tennis, badminton and volleyball may seem similar, there is significant difference in scoring in all of them. Scoring in tennis includes points, games, and sets. The rules of tennis scoring are same for singles and doubles events. Every time a player successfully hits the ball into the opponents court, who misses it, he earns a point. Winning points earns the player a game, winning games earns the player a set, and winning sets earns the player the match.

Tennis Scoring System Explained

In tennis scoring system, zero is always referred to as 'love'. The first point is referred to as 15, second point 30, third point 40, and fourth point wins the game. In short, it's Love - 15- 30 - 40 and game. In the course of the match, the servers score is always called first. If the server wins the first point, his score goes to 15, and the score is counted as 15-Love. On the other hand, if the opponent wins the first point the score is counted as Love-15. If the score becomes 40-40 it is referred to as a Deuce. In such a scenario, players have to win two consecutive points to win the game.

When a player wins the first of the two consecutive points required, it is called Advantage, which means winning the subsequent point will earn him the game. After every game the serve is rotated. The player who wins 6 games with a margin of 2 games first wins the set. This means that if the score reaches 5-5, the match will go on till some player scores 7, but if the score becomes 6-6, the set goes for a tie breaker.

According to the rules of tennis scoring, the tie-breaker scores are counted in form of a point each and the first player who makes it to seven points, with a margin of 2 points wins the set. Owing to the margin of two points, tie breakers can even be extended until one of the player wins by a margin of two or makes two consecutive points. Generally, a tennis match is played for 3 sets, but in Grand Slam tournaments the matches played are best of 5 sets. The player wins the match as soon as he wins the most possible sets from the total number of sets prescribed. For instance, if the match is of best of 5 sets the person winning 3 sets first wins the match, and if it is best of 3 match the person winning 2 sets first wins the match.

Hitting the ball to and fro can be fun indeed, but including these rules in the game adds the much required zest to the game. You can get well-versed with these rules by keeping track of the score of the matches you watch on television. This will not just help you become perfect in tennis scoring, but will also make it fun to watch. You may take some time to get accustomed to the various tennis rules, especially the rules about scoring and faults, but once you do, the simple sport of tennis would be way more fun.