Guest Author - Eric T. Coursey
When I was quite young I found tennis very boring, it ranked up there with golf and curling as one of the more boring sports to watch. As I got older, I grew to appreciate these sports a whole lot more. I realized that my dislike for tennis in particular was due to my ignorance, I had no idea what love or deuce meant. There were so many terms that I just didn't understand. I knew that you had to hit the ball over the net but I really didn't know all that much about tennis. Now that I understand it, tennis has become one of my favourite sports both to watch and to play. Hopefully by the end of this article you will understand this sport a little better and you can begin to enjoy tennis as much as I do.
The tennis court is rectangular with a baseline, sidelines, serving boxes, and there are also doubles lanes on many courts. The court is 78 feet long with a net dividing it in half. The singles court is 27 feet wide and the doubles court adds 4 1/2 feet to either sides. There are 4 serving boxes, two on each side of the net. The serving boxes are half the width of the singles court and they are 21 feet long. There is also a hash mark on the baseline signaling the center of the baseline.
You begin the game with one person serving from behind the baseline and on the right side of the center hash mark, serving the ball diagonally into the service box on your opponent’s side of the net. You get two chances each time you serve to get the ball into play. If you hit the net and the ball goes in, it is called a let and you get to re-serve. If the ball does not land in side the correct service box or you step on the line while serving it is a called a fault and you have to take your second serve. If you fault again it is called a double-fault and the point is awarded to your opponent. If the ball lands in the service box or any part of the ball lands on the line, it is considered in and the rally begins.
You are allowed to let the ball bounce once before hitting it back to your opponent’s side; however you can also hit the ball before it bounces but you must only hit it when it is on your side of the court. If you allow the ball to bounce more than once on your side, your opponent is awarded the point. The ball is considered in if it lands within the court or if any part of the ball lands on the line or if it touches your opponent before landing outside of the court.
Scoring is a little odd in tennis. If the score is zero it is called love, the first point is 15, followed by 30, then 40 and game. If the game is tied at 40 it is called deuce and you now have to win the game by two points. If the server wins the next point it is called ad in but if the receiver wins the point it is called ad out. Whoever wins that first point and wins the next point wins the game, if they were to lose that second point the score would revert back to deuce. A set is won by the first player to win 6 games however they have to have won at least 2 games more than their opponent. If the set is 6 to 5 and the player who won 6 games wins the next game they win the set, however if the games are tied at 6 they play a tie-breaker. A tie-breaker is scored 1, 2, 3 and so on until a player reaches 7. A player must win this by 2 points and the tie-breaker has no point cap. The tie-breaker begins with the player whose turn it is to serve, serving the first point, they then alternate serving after every two serves until the tie-break is over.
There is a long list of rules and explanations to help understand how to play tennis, everything from player’s etiquette to how to score in different scenarios. There are some minor variations when playing doubles but the basics of the game are the same.
