Comprehending the Basics

So you're thinking about taking up the sport of tennis either as a hobby or competitively at a court near you. Since tennis requires almost as much mental stamina as physical, it's important to know and understand the basic rules of tennis so that you can play accurately.

Aside from the tie-breaker rule incorporated during the 1970s, the basic rules of tennis have remained unchanged since its creation in the late 1800s. The rules provided in this article come from the International Tennis Federation’s rulebook.

Serve’s Up

Tennis games are played in sets, which are broken down into games comprised of points. Players must be serving the ball in order to accumulate points. In tennis, players start off on opposite sides of the net. The player serving the ball first is known as the server while his or her opponent is called the receiver. When serving, the server must stand behind the baseline and between the center mark and sideline. The receiver may start anywhere on their side of the court.

For a serve to be considered legal it must travel over the net and land in the diagonally opposite service box. If the served ball hits the net and lands in the service box, the serve is considered void and the server is permitted another serve without penalty. This is known as a let serve, and players are allowed an unlimited amount of let serves per game.

However, if the served ball is wide of the service box or short of the net, it is counted as a fault and the player is permitted a second serve. If the second serve also faults, it is considered a double fault and the receiver is awarded the point.

Once a legal serve takes place, the players alternate hitting the ball over the net in what’s known as the rally. Players are only allowed one bounce on their side of the court before hitting the ball. If the ball hits the net or is hit out of bounds by either player, the rally comes to an end, and the first player that causes the bad return loses the point.

Love-Forty

The next aspect of the basic rules of tennis that is important to understand is its scoring system. As previously mentioned, players must be in possession of the serve in order to earn points. Players begin the game at zero, which is known as love in tennis terminology. Each time the serving player forces their opponent to hit an illegal return, they earn fifteen points. Hence, the scoring goes from zero to fifteen to thirty to forty, which is the game-winning score unless both players hit forty, which is known as deuce.

In the deuce situation, with both players at forty, if a player scores a point they gain what’s known as an advantage, which is also known as “ad in” or “ad out”, in for when the serving player is ahead and out for when it’s the receiver with the advantage. If the player with the advantage scores an additional point, they win the game. However if the player without the advantage scores then the score returns to deuce, and they continue playing until one player has two points more than their opponent.