Court 03 / The umpire's desk
Tennis counts in a way no other sport has dared. Love, fifteen, thirty, forty, then game. Nobody agrees where the numbers came from, and the stories you hear are mostly folklore, so we will skip the myths and teach you how to use them.
Service box 1
A game is built from points. Win your first and the score is 15. Win a second and it is 30, a third and it is 40. Win a fourth point while your opponent has 30 or fewer and you win the game. Zero is called love. The server's score is always called first, so "thirty-fifteen" means the server has two points and the receiver has one.
The jump from 30 to 40 is just a quirk. The scoring is a tally with names, not arithmetic. Four points make a game, and the numbers are labels.
Service box 2
When both sides reach 40, the game is at deuce. A game must be won by two clear points, so from deuce the next point gives advantage to whoever won it. Win the next point as well and you take the game. Lose it and you are back at deuce. Games can bounce between deuce and advantage for a very long time. That is the drama.
Some matches use no-ad scoring. At 40-all there is one deciding point and the winner takes the game. Switch it on in the tracker below.
Service box 3
Games stack into sets. The usual set goes to six games, and you must lead by two, so 6-4 wins a set but 6-5 does not. Matches are usually one set, best of three or best of five sets. The tracker below lets you pick a set length of four or six games and a one-set or best-of-three match.
The server changes every game. Within a game, the server alternates between the right and left sides of the court, starting from the right.
Service box 4
When a set reaches six games each (or four each in the short version), a tiebreak decides it. Here points are counted 1, 2, 3 and so on. The first to seven points wins, provided they lead by two. The first server serves one point, then the serve alternates every two points. The player who served first in the tiebreak receives first in the next set.
The tiebreak winner takes the set by one game, for example 7-6.
Tennis counts to four and starts again. Bitcoin counts blocks and keeps going.
A tennis game resets to love every time someone wins it. Bitcoin's chain never resets: new blocks arrive about every ten minutes by design, and every 210,000 blocks the block reward halves. Whitepaper in 2008, genesis block in January 2009, and the count has not stopped since. Different games, different rules, same human weakness for tallying things.
Point tracker
Tap a point after every rally. The scoreboard flips, the server updates itself and the log writes everything down. Made a mistake? Undo steps back one point at a time. Everything is stored only in your browser.
Love all. Player A to serve.
Shortcuts: A point for Player A, B point for Player B, U undo.
| Player | Games | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Player A | 0 | Love |
| Player B | 0 | Love |
Points won: no points played yet.
Nothing on the board yetTap a Point button after the first rally and the log starts writing itself.
Line judge's note. This is an independent hobby tool, not an official scoring system, and it is not affiliated with any tennis body.