How does tennis work

We get it: that's confusing. This handy guide will teach you the basics of scoring, and playing the sport for a lifetime, with helpful tips and buzzwords that you may want to know before you take to the court. Mastering the proper terminology may not help your forehand or serve, but at least in conversation, you can hang with anyone. Tennis is a game played on a rectangular-shaped court, which can be one of many surfaces.

It is either played with two players singles match , or four players doubles match. Players stand on opposite sides of the net and use a stringed racquet to hit the ball back and forth to each other. Each player or team has a maximum of one bounce after the ball has been hit by their opponent to return the ball over the net and within the boundaries of the court.

In wheelchair tennis, players get a maximum of two bounces. When a player then fails to return the ball into the correct court, the opponent wins a point. The aim of tennis is to win enough points to win a game, enough games to win a set, and enough sets to win a match. Before warming up with your opponent, either player or team will spin their racquet and the winner of the spin will have some options to choose from. They can choose one of these 3 options:.

Once the winner of the toss chooses one of the options above, the opponent has the remaining choice. Tennis has a different point system than most sports. Before we go into detail, here is your guide to scoring a game:.

In order to win the game, a player must win at least four points. The first attempt is known as a "Fault" where no points are awarded, the second attempt is referred to as "Double Fault" and the opponent is awarded a point. After a serve has been put in play if any player hits the ball into the net the other player s are awarded a point.

After a serve has been put in play if any player hits the ball into the Doubles Alleys on either side of the court or behind the baseline the other player s are awarded a point. The scoring in Doubles play is the same except that the Doubles Alleys are in-play. This means that hitting the ball into the Alleys does not result in the other team receiving 15 points but rather continues play until another player hits the ball into the net, or behind the baseline.

Tennis matches can typically drag on for hours on end. The longest match in tennis history was played in , and went over 11 hours and was played over the course of three days. The strategy behind playing games, of course, varies from player to player and from grass courts to clay courts.

To win a game, you want to focus on your opponent's weaknesses. And the best tennis players in the world are quite good at doing this and taking advantage of it. If a player can expose a weakness early in a tennis match, that match will typically fly by a little bit quicker, because the losing player is simply outmatched. The goal, in short, win and win quickly.

What Is Mixed Doubles Tennis? What is Tennis? What is Wheelchair Tennis? What Is Fault In Tennis? What Is Tennis Etiquette? To make it easier to understand, we will show a sample game situation below. As you can see, if no player can obtain a 2 point margin, the scoring will keep going from 40 x 40 to Advantage x Once one player finally wins the game, he or she will get a little closer from winning a set see below. The player who was serving will then receive, and vice-versa.

The point scoring will go back to 0 x 0 and will start again. A set is the third stage of the tennis scoring system. Once a player accumulates enough games as mentioned above , he or she will win a set. Generally, a player will win a set if he can win 6 games before his opponent can win 5. If one of the players can do that, he will win a set, both players will take a break, and both the point and game counting will go back to 0 x 0.

For example, if player A wins 5 games, then player B wins 4, followed by player A winning 1 more, player A will have won a set by 6 x 4 and the score will go back to 0 x 0. However, if both players tie at 5 games to 5, one of them will need to win by a margin of 2 games. That means that one of them would need to win 2 games before his opponent can win 1 game.

If that happens, the player who does so wins the set by 7 x 5 and the point and game counting goes back to 0 x 0. We will cover the tiebreak rules below. But first, we will show how a standard tennis set would work. A tiebreak is a special type of game, designed to break a tie between two players hence the name. Normally, a tiebreak occurs when both players are tied at 6 games to 6.

The scoring system in a tiebreak game works differently than regular games 0, 15, 30, 40 , and you should count the points using the regular numerical system 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ….

Normally, the first player to reach a total of 7 points wins the tiebreak, also winning the set. If both players tie at 6 x 6 points in the tiebreak, the winner will be whoever gets a 2 point advantage for example 8 x 6 or 9 x 7. Once the tiebreak is over, both the point scoring and the game scoring goes back to 0 x 0, and the regular tennis scoring starts over 0, 15, 30, During the tiebreak, the player who begins serving player A serves for one point.

The other player player B will then serve for 2 points. After that, each player will serve for 2 points until the game is over. Now that we have covered how to win tennis points, games, and sets, it is time to explain how a player can win a match. If you understand how the rest of the scoring system works, understanding how to win a match should be a breeze.

In order to win a tennis match, a player needs to win either 2 out of 3 sets or 3 out of 5 sets, depending on the tournament he or she is playing.

What that means is that, in order to win a match, a player needs to win 2 sets before his or her opponent. Possible final scores are 2 sets to 0 or 2 sets to 1. Mostly, such a scoring system is only used in Grand Slams.

In order to win the match, a player needs to be the first one to win 3 sets. The first point scored after deuce is known as "advantage. If that player loses the point, then the score reverts to deuce. US Open Men Single. Australian Open Men Single. Wimbledon Women Single. US Open Women Single. French Open Women Single. Australian Open Women Single. French Open Men Single. Wimbledon Men Single. Novak Djokovic vs. How to watch Novak Djokovic vs.