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What is the history of tennis’ strange scoring system?

What is the history of tennis’ strange scoring system?

The origins of the 15, 30, and 40 scores are believed to be medieval French. The earliest reference is in a ballad by Charles D’Orleans in 1435 which refers to quarante cinque (which gave rise to our 40) and in 1522 there is a sentence in Latin “we are winning thirty, we are winning forty-five”. The first recorded theories about the origin of fifteen were published in 1555 and 1579. However, the origins of this convention remain obscure.

It is possible that clock faces were used on the court, with a quarter move of the hand to indicate a score of 15, 30, and 45. When the hand moved to 60, the game was over. However, to ensure that the game could not be won by a one-point difference in players’ scores, the idea of “deuce” was introduced. To make the score stay within the “60” ticks on the clock face, the 45 was changed to 40.

Therefore, if both players have 40, the first player to score receives ten and that moves the clock to 50. If the player scores a second time before the opponent can score, they are awarded another ten and the clock moves to 60. The 60 signifies the end of the game. However, if a player fails to score twice in a row, then the clock would move back to 40 to establish another “deuce”.

Another theory is that the scoring nomenclature came from the French game jeu de paume (a precursor to tennis which initially used the hand instead of a racket). Jeu de paume was very popular before the French Revolution, with more than 1,000 courts in Paris alone. The traditional court was 90 ft in total with 45 ft on each side. When the server scored, he moved forward 15 ft. If he scored again, he would move another 15 ft. If he scored a third time, he could only move 10 feet closer.

The origin of the use of “love” for zero is also disputed. It may derive from the French expression for “the egg” because an egg looks like the number zero. Another theory on the origins of the use of “love” comes from the acceptance that, at the start of any match, when scores are at zero, players still have “love for each other”.

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