If you watch Novak Djokovic dominate on clay in Paris Games If you’ve been inspired to delve deeper into all things on the court—including trying to figure out how tennis scoring actually works—you’ve picked the perfect time. Just over two weeks after the closing ceremony of the Olympics on August 11, one of the sport’s biggest and most anticipated tournaments, the US Open, will kick off at New York’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with first-round matches in both the men’s and women’s singles.
Considering that the best players in the world will be showing up (including Djokovic, who actually won it all in 2011, 2015, 2018, and 2023), you’ll definitely want to tune in. But you’ll probably want to make sure you know how the game works first so you can follow along. You’ve probably heard that “love” doesn’t count for anything, but what about terms like “deuce,” “ace,” and “double fault”? And we haven’t even delved into the fact that the scoring system starts at 0 and, for some reason, maxes out at 40.
To make the sport a little more accessible, we’ve put together an easy-to-digest guide on how tennis scoring actually works. Trust us: with the Open fast approaching, this is your “advertisement” to study up on.
How does scoring work in tennis?
You’ve probably heard the phrase “game, set, match” before. Well, guess what: it’s a tennis thing! These words describe the three phases of the sport.
Games come first, followed by sets, and finally matches. As the The United States Tennis Association (USTA) explains thisthe objective is to score enough points to win a game, then win enough games to win a set, and then win enough sets to win a match. Still with us? Good.
How to score a point in tennis?
You’re going to need to score points if you want to win games. The good news is that there is a some different ways to do this. One is if you hit the ball to your opponent, it lands in bounds, and he can’t hit it back to you. This could be while you’re serving — if it goes completely past him and he can’t even get a racket on it, that’s called an “ace” — or just while you’re rallying, or hitting the ball back and forth. Other things that can give you a point: your opponent misses the ball completely, lets it bounce more than once before hitting it back, or hits the ball out of bounds.
You can also score a point if your opponent hits a return ball over the net. But! If you hit a ball, it just grazes the net, then bounces over the top and goes in bounds, that is considered a good return. Point, you.
Another cool thing: you can actually score a point – and technically even win a game – without always touch the ball. If your opponent makes a biff on a serve, it is called a “fault.” If he does it twice in a row, he has just committed a “double fault,” and you have scored the point.
How do you manage to control these points?
For tennis newbies, the scoring system is one of the most confusing aspects of the sport. But it’s actually quite easy to digest once you learn a few basic terms. First of all, the scoring system: