the.com/tennis
the only sport where the score for nothing is named after love.
means A racquet sport in which two players (or two pairs) hit a ball back and forth across a net on a marked court, scoring points until one side wins.
from The name comes from Old French 'tenez!' — 'hold!' or 'take it!' — the call a server would shout to an opponent before striking the ball. English speakers heard it as 'tenetz' and eventually 'tennis.' The game itself began as 'real tennis,' played indoors with the hand before racquets arrived, long before the lawn version we know today. As for 'love' meaning zero: the charming theory is that it's from French 'l'oeuf' ('the egg,' a round nothing), but scholars treat that as folk etymology — more likely it simply meant playing for the 'love' of the game, with nothing at stake.
- ball speed
- Serves clock past 160 mph regularly
- longest match
- Wimbledon 2010 lasted over 11 hours
- silence rule
- Crowds must hush during every point
- grass origins
- Wimbledon still played on real lawn
- new balls
- Swapped every nine games during play
wimbledon — grass court grand slam in london, oldest tennis tournament since 1877
us open — hard court grand slam in new york, held annually since 1881
french open — clay court grand slam in paris, played on roland garros courts since 1925
australian open — hard court grand slam in melbourne, held each january since 1905