 Like a lot of sports tennis can seem confusing at first But the rules are not all that complicated Which should allow you to pick up on a pretty good understanding of a really fun game in just a few minutes So we're going to break down the court how the points are won and Kept track of and then we'll finish off by taking a look at a few different shots The first thing you'll notice when looking at a tennis court is that they have different surfaces This one for example is a grass court other popular surfaces Maybe the one at your local park is probably a hard surface and there are also clay surfaces as well these could have some effect on play and Some players will be better at playing on different surfaces than others Something that every court will have in common though is the layout in the middle You will find the net and on either side of the net the court is a mirror image The names of the lines aren't particularly important to remember for now, but to point out a few things these are known as the service lines and In the middle perpendicular to the net is the center service line We'll get back to why these are important in just a few seconds Next are these notches in the back which are called the center marks and Finally the singles sidelines will come back to the outer sidelines later One important thing to note about the lines is that during the game if the ball lands on the line It is in kind of like baseball So let's jump into how a game is played and hopefully the purpose of all these lines should quickly become apparent Every tennis match starts with a serve So our player on the left here is going to throw the ball into the air and hit it over the net for his serve He must stand behind the baseline and he must also stand off to one side of the center mark He will throw the ball into the air and he must hit it into the space in Front of the service line on the opposite side of the center mark. He is standing on so this one here This is called the service box Now at this point the other player will be able to return the serve By hitting it anywhere between the single sidelines and in front of the baseline The service lines don't matter to him because he isn't serving and then at this point our server would receive the ball and hit it back and This time just like his opponent. He can hit it anywhere On the other side of the court If at any point the ball was hit outside the sidelines or into the net or over the baseline The other player would get a point a player would also get a point if their opponent allows the ball to bounce more than once And you can only hit the ball once to get it back over the net Players will usually allow the ball to bounce but other than on the serve You don't have to let it bounce if you don't want to and so the players will continue to hit the ball back and forth Trying to keep it in until it goes out or until someone fails to return it Hitting it back and forth like this is called a rally and it could end very quickly or It could take a long time. It all depends on the players After one player or the other gets a point the server would get the ball back to serve again this time though he was switch to the other side of the center mark and He would have to hit the ball into the other service box And again, the other player can return the ball anywhere between the sidelines in in front of the baseline One final thing to note on serves is that the player who is serving gets two chances to hit the ball in If on their first serve the ball goes into the net or lands outside the service box the judge will call it out and They will have their second serve If they fail though to get their second serve in as well, it would be a point for the other player The exception to that is that if on the serve the ball hits the net and still lands inside the service box If that happens it is called a let and the official will call out let and the server will essentially get a do over So a let isn't really a good thing or a bad thing for either player So now that we know where the players need to hit the ball and how to get a point Let's look at how these points add up Rather than simply counting up points one two three four tenets instead uses the terms love 15 30 40 and then gain nobody really knows why this is the case some theories say that has something to do with a clock face But it's been that way sometimes since the 14 or 1500s and even though it can be a bit confusing at first It seems to work fine So regardless of who is winning the servers points are always said first So if the server gets the first point he would be winning the game 15 love If the other player gets the next point it would then be 15 15 or 15 all and It would continue that way until we get up to game One thing tennis is big on though is that you must win by two So if the game is at 40 to 30 and the server gets the next point Then he would win because he would have two more points than his opponent if however the score gets to 40 to 40 The next point would not be the game winner Instead of our score getting higher something like 60 to 40 something like that when the score is 40 to 40 rather than saying 40 to 40 or 40 all it is now said that the score is deuce At this point we stop using the numbers and the player who scores the next point is said to have the advantage So if Serena Williams is playing Maria Sharapova and the score is at deuce Which is again the same thing as 4040 and Serena gets the next point The score would then just be advantage Serena Williams if she gets the next point after that She would win the game if however the score is advantage Serena and Sharapova gets the next point It would then go back to deuce or be deuce number two And so it would continue like that until somebody finally got two consecutive points after it was deuce and That's wins by two This is one spot where you could potentially go back and forth for a very long time because there's no limit to how many deuses You can have Finally though somebody will win the game if I haven't made it clear I probably should that a player will serve for an entire game Whether they win or lose and then they will switch for the next game The other player will serve and then they'll continue to alternate Serving each game Our games will make up a set typically And this could all depend on the level of play but i'm talking about the generally the pros So if you turn a match on on tv this will probably be with the scoring that they're using But typically a set will last Until one player wins six games and again you have to win by two There is however a limit on Winning by two when it comes to sets. So if a set is tied at five games to five The next game will make it six games to five. So even though they've won six games They have not won by two and so they will play another game Now if the same player wins that game, they will win that set seven to five However, if the other player wins and ties it at six games to six Then they will play what is called a tiebreaker In a tiebreaker both players will alternate serving and it's the first to seven points for whatever reason tiebreakers are kind of one two three But again, you will have to win by two. So I won't Dwell too much on tiebreakers, but you get the point Eventually whoever wins the tiebreaker will win that set seven games to six Finally the sets comprise a match which the match is the whole game between the two players For the men a match is a best of five sets Or the first to win three and for women it is the best of three or the first to win two Depending on the number of games that each set takes this could mean a match can go pretty quickly Or take a very long time a lot of deuces long rallies or both players winning a close number of games Can mean that the match will probably take a few hours. So you'll probably be pretty tired by the end of it So if all the games and sets and matches was confusing perhaps this will clarify it If you watch a match on tv The score will appear in the corner in a box that will look something like this Now obviously these names are our two players serena williams and mariah sharepova And besides the one who is serving in the game there will be a little arrow So serena right now is serving Beside that in the green is the score of the current game So we can see that serena is winning 15 love right now in the next column Are in the next column are the sets starting with the first one So it says that mariah won the first set six games to four And we are currently in the second set which is tied at two games to two And again the first player to win two sets will win the match So now that we have the way scoring works Figured out and if you haven't completely wrapped your head around it. Don't worry I'd recommend watching a match or two on tv and and two or three games into that match You should have things figured out pretty well But for now, let's switch to the different types of shots and these are not necessarily part of the rules But it will make things a lot less confusing when you hear an announcer talk on tv about a good forehand First of all, this is what a serve will typically look like As we know the server stands behind the baseline here and she will throw the ball over her head and hit it She's actually very close to the line The baseline on this one so she'll have to be careful not to step on it At any point during the serve And because you have two chances to get the serve in the first serve will probably Be hit as hard as possible Which will make it difficult for the opponent to to return and control Whereas the second one Will be focused more on getting the ball in rather than speed So here's another shot this guy is playing on a grass court But again, he's behind the baseline and it can actually it can take years To get comfortable throwing the ball up to the right height and while it might look easy Um, it can be tough to get the serve in especially when you're trying to hit the ball You know some of these professionals can get it up around 100 miles an hour After the serve the two main shots or grips Are the forehand which you can see here this girl is right-handed So she's going to hit the ball like this with the racket out away from her body And the opposite of that is the backhand Which will mean that the racket is across your body like this girl who is also right-handed And in this case she's using both hands So this would be a two-handed backhand, but you can also have a one-hand backhand as well Some players are very good forehands, but are not so good at their backhand. Some are the opposite It takes a lot of practice to master both You probably won't be able to get very far with only one So it's so every player has to balance the amount of time they spend working on Either the forehand or the backhand or their serve as well The final thing we'll look at in this video is How doubles works, which is when both sides have two players And you may have noticed when we were looking at the lines That the single sidelines are not actually the edge of the court And That we have these two areas on either side that are unused And in singles play that is correct. They are not used at all these two areas. They're called the alleys The only time they come into play is during a doubles match And so then the out of bounds lines shift to these lines So during a doubles match, the serve will still be the same. The server still has to hit the ball into the service box But now the return can be anywhere on the other side of the court So if the ball were to bounce here, it would be out during a singles match But it would be in during a doubles match And likewise the subsequent return can then be anywhere on that side of the court. That's all that really changes for doubles So now that you have a general understanding of how that works, you should be able to turn on a match on tv Um or look for one online There's lots of tennis online and be able to pick up on the pace and the the general Way things work pretty quickly So to wrap things up, um, we're going to answer one question that probably everybody wonders the first time that they hear about The scoring system in tennis and that is why Instead of using the number zero Why do they call it love and the real origin of that like the rest of the scoring system is Unknown so we we don't know for sure one theory is that the french word for the phrase the egg And I guess an egg looks like a zero Um is the french word is louf, which I guess sounds a bit like love Um, so that's one theory But another story that I've heard um, I think I like this one a little better Is that the players who will often have zero points Um, yet continue to play the game anyway are not playing because they are good But they are playing out of enjoyment, which is to say they are playing for the love of the game