Tennis

Tennis or more correctly Lawn tennis is one of the 5 most popular sports in the world, behind soccer and alongside golf and cricket. It was originally invented in England, based on Real Tennis, which in turn was based probably around hitting a ball against a wall with a hand, and was popularised in the 12th century by members of the English royal family. While Real Tennis was typically only played by monarchs, lawn tennis was invented as a variation that could be played by anyone, with much simpler rules.

Tennis involves 1 or 2 persons on either side of a net with a tennis racquet in each hand who hit a tennis ball over the net onto the court. The aim is to hit the ball into the court so fast or so awkwardly that the opponent cannot hit it back into your court. If the player either fails to hit the ball back before it bounces a 2nd time, or else they hit it back into the net or out of bounds, then a point is awarded to the last player who had successfully hit the ball into the court. If the ball had never made it successfully into the court, then it is deemed to be a fault and the server must repeat the serve. If two faults in a row occur, then a point is awarded to the opponent.

The first point scores 15, then 30, then 40, then game, which is based around the complicated scoring system of real tennis. A score of 0 is often designated as "love". If both opponents have 40, then the score is designated as "deuce". If, after "deuce", one team wins a point, it is designated that they have an "advantage". The game is won by the first team to get to 1 point beyond "40" or 1 point beyond "advantage", in other words to get at least 4 points with at least a 2 point margin.

Serves alternate from one team to the other at the end of each game. Each time that one team is serving, they must serve every single time for that game, no matter the length of the game. For each serve, they must stand behind the baseline and must hit it before the half court on the other side of the net, on the opposite side to that which they are serving from, with the ball going over the net. They must not allow any part of their foot to go above the baseline before they hit the ball or else it is a foot fault.

Each time that a point is scored, the server must change sides to serve from. Each side is referred to as either the "deuce court" or the "advantage court", depending on which side you would be serving from if you were at "deuce" or "advantage".

Every 6 games, players change ends.

Typically, a set lasts until one side has won 6 games with at least a 2 game advantage, i.e. at least 6-4. If the score is 6-5 then the set continues until there is a 2 game advantage. In some tournaments, they will have a tie breaker at 6-6, in which they play a single game with alternating serves every 2 points, aiming to be the first to 7 points with at least a 2 point margin.

In major tournaments men play to the best of 5 sets (first to win 3 sets) while women play to the best of 3 sets (first to win 2 sets). In minor tournaments, men also play to the best of 3 sets (first to win 2 sets). Traditionally women did not play tennis as much as men and hence were not expected to last for as long (and also were not paid as much in prizemoney) but since women have been paid the same as men and are just as competitive with just as many players, no reason has been given why women continue to only play to the best of 3 sets instead of the best of 5 sets like men do. Women certainly are biologically capable of lasting as long as men!

Popularity of tennis

Tennis is one of the 10 most popular sports in virtually every country in the world, with roughly equal popularity worldwide. United States of America typically makes up about half of the best tennis players in both men's and women's tennis with a wide variety of other countries from all over the world making up the other good players.

The 4 major tennis matches are played in United States, England, France and Australia, all of them currently being on different surfaces and each with slightly different rules. Of the 4, the United States tournament is considered to be the least important of the 4 major tournaments, with Wimbledon (England) being considered to be the most important. The French Open, played at Rolland Garros on clay, is such a different surface to the other 3 that many players do not do very well and as such it is the most frequently boycotted of the 4, although it is the 2nd most viewed of the 4 major tournaments because of the unpredictability of it and the chance for clay court specialists to do well. The Australian Open is hard court and has the truest surface of the 4 and as such the best players tend to win with fewer upsets than other tournaments. The US Open is indoor and also is the only one of the 4 tournaments to have tie breakers in all sets and as such attracts less interest than the other 3 major tournaments. The 4 major tournaments are combined described as the "Grand Slam", with winning a major tournament being described as "winning a slam" and winning all 4 in the same year being described as "winning the grand slam", which is a major event. The French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open are all played soon after each other through May-September, virtually straight after each other, with the Australian open played 4 months later in January. The Australian Open is boycotted by some players who prefer to play the 3 majors that are all straight after each other and then have a rest from major tennis until the next year.

Major tennis tournaments are typically played as knockouts, with for example 128 players in the first round, 64 in the 2nd round, 32 in the 3rd round, 16 in the 4th round, then quarter finals (5th round), semi finals and finals. Major tournaments may have a challenge tournament to gain entry into the final 128. Players are usually seeded, based normally on their world rankings, to ensure that top ranked players don't play each other until later on in the tournament, so that for example the number 2 player in the world isn't knocked out by the number 1 player in the first round. This was not always the case - as that precise thing happened in the first round of a grand slam once! Other than the seeds (often 16 but sometimes 32), the other players are drawn lots for who they play against, which is entirely random. The aim of the seeds is that the top 2 players will play in the final, with the top 4 in the semi finals, top 8 in the quarter finals, top 16 in the 4th round and, if seeding goes that far, top 32 in the 3rd round.

Some tennis tournaments are played as team events, the most famous being the Davis Cup, where players play for their country as 2 singles matches, a doubles match and then 2 more singles matches with different opponents, and usually 4 players total (2 singles and 2 doubles), though they can have 3 or even 2 players if one or both of the single players opt to also play doubles. The matches are typically played over 3 sets with the winner of the match getting a point for their country and the total being a best of 5, or the first to 3 matches won. This tournament is spread out over the course of an entire year, and is a knockout tournament in terms of countries. Whilst United States is dominant in grand slam tennis, they typically have shown little or no interest in Davis Cup and hence have not often been dominant in that format.