Scoring system

The tennis scoring system is a way to keep track of tennis matches (including pick-up games). Some tennis matches are played as part of a tournament (tournaments may have various categories, such as singles and doubles). The great majority are organized as a single-elimination tournament, with competitors being eliminated after a single loss, and the overall winner being the last competitor without a loss. Optimally, such tournaments have a number of competitors equal to a power of two in order to fully fill out a single elimination bracket.

In many professional and top-level amateur events, the brackets are seeded according to a recognized ranking system, in order to keep the best players in the field from facing each other until as late in the tournament as possible; additionally, if byes are necessary because of a less-than-full bracket, those byes in the first round are usually given to the highest-seeded competitors.

A tennis match is composed of points, games, and sets. A set consists of a number of games (a minimum of six), which in turn each consist of points. A set is won by the first side to win 6 games, with a margin of at least 2 games over the other side (e.g. 6-3 or 7-5). If the set is tied at six games each, a tie-break is usually played to decide the set. A match is won when a player or a doubles team has won the majority of the prescribed number of sets.

Matches employ either a best-of-three (first to two sets wins) or best-of-five (first to three sets wins) set format. The best-of-five set format is usually only used in the men’s singles or doubles matches at Grand Slam and Davis Cup matches.

A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving, and is won by the first side to have won at least four points with a margin of two points or more over their opponent. Normally the server’s score is always called first and the receiver’s score second. Score calling in tennis is unusual in that (except in tie-breaks) each point has a corresponding call that is different from its point value. The current point score is announced orally before each point by the judge, or by the server if there is no judge.

In tennis, a set consists of a sequence of games played with alternating service and return roles. There are two types of set formats that require different types of scoring.

1. An advantage set is played until a player or team has won at least 6 games and that player or team has a 2-game lead over their opponent(s). The set continues, without tiebreak(er), until a player or team wins the set by 2 games.
2. A tie-break set is played with the same rules as the advantage set, except that when the score is tied at 6-6, a tie-break game (or tiebreaker) is played. Typically, the tie-break game continues until one side has won seven points with a margin of two or more points. However, many tie-break games are played with different tiebreak point requirements, such as 8 or 10 points. Often, a 7-point tie-breaker is played when the set score is tied at 6-6 to determine who wins the set. If the tiebreak score gets to 6-6, then whichever player to win the best of two points wins the set.

The score of games within a set is counted in the ordinary manner, except that when a player or team has a score of no games it is read as “love”. The score is written using digits separated by a dash. This score is announced by the judge or server at the start of each game.

As for a match score, the winner is the side that wins more than half of the sets, and the match ends as soon as this is achieved. Men’s matches may be the best of either three or five sets, while women’s and mixed doubles matches are usually best of three sets.

The alternation of service between games continues throughout the match without regard to sets, but the ends are changed after each odd game within a set (including the last game). If, for example, the second set of a match ends with the score at 6-3, 1-6, the ends are changed as the last game played was the 7th (odd) game of the set and in spite of it being the 16th (even) game of the match.

Even when a set ends with an odd game, ends are again changed after the first game of the following set. A tiebreaker game is treated as a single game for the purposes of this alternation. Since tiebreakers always result in a score of 7-6, there is always a court change after the tiebreaker.

The score of a complete match may be given simply by sets won, or with the scores in each set given separately. In either case, the match winner’s score is stated first. In the former, shorter form, a match might be listed as 3-1 (i.e. three sets to one). In the latter form, this same match might be further described as “7-5, 6-7(4-7), 6-4, 7-6(8-6)” (as noted above, an alternate form of writing the tiebreak score lists only the loser’s score – e.g., “7-6(6)” for the fourth set in the example).

This match was won three sets to one, with the match loser winning the second set on a tiebreaker. The numbers in parentheses, normally included in printed scorelines but omitted when spoken, indicate the duration of the tiebreaker following a given set. Here, the match winner lost the second-set tiebreaker 7-4 and won the fourth-set tiebreaker 8-6.