How tennis scoring works

A tennis game is won by the first player to four points, as long as they are two points clear. The points are not called one, two, three and four. They are called 15, 30, 40 and game, and a score of zero is called love. So a player who has won two points to their opponent's one is at 30-15.

The server's score is always said first. At 30-15 the server leads. At 15-30 the server is behind. One player serves for the whole game, and the serve passes to the other player for the next game.

The words come from old French scoring and have no effect on how the game is counted. If it helps, think of them as the first, second and third point, with the fourth point winning the game.

At 40-40 the game is at deuce. From deuce, winning a point gives you the advantage, and winning the next point as well wins the game. Lose it and the score goes back to deuce. A game can go to deuce several times before someone wins two points in a row.

Many clubs and leagues shorten this with no-ad scoring, also called a deciding point or sudden death. At deuce a single point decides the game, and in doubles the receiving pair chooses which of them receives. It is the same idea as padel's golden point. Whichever you play, the set is still counted in games, so it changes how a game ends and nothing about what you record afterwards.

A set is won by the first player to 6 games with a margin of two. So 6-4, 6-3 and 6-0 are finished sets, and 6-5 is not. At 5-5 the set goes on to 7-5 if one player wins the next two games.

Players alternate serving each game, and change ends after the first game of a set and after every two games from then on, so each player serves and receives from both ends.

When a set reaches six games all, a tiebreak usually decides it. Points in a tiebreak are counted one, two, three, and the first player to seven points with a margin of two wins the tiebreak and the set. The set is recorded as 7-6, whatever the points in the tiebreak were.

The player due to serve next serves the first point of the tiebreak. After that, the serve changes every two points, and players change ends every six points. A tiebreak can run on past seven, so 9-7 and 12-10 are common scores inside one.

An advantage set has no tiebreak. The set carries on until one player leads by two games, so 8-6, 9-7 and 10-8 are all possible scores. For years the deciding set at some of the biggest tournaments was played this way, and some clubs and friendly matches still are.

FinalPoint accepts an advantage set as a full set in tennis: any score of eight games or more won by exactly two is a finished set. In padel it is not, because padel always tiebreaks at six all, which is one of the few places the two sports' scoring differs.

A match is the best of three sets, so the first player to win two. If the first two sets are shared, a third decides it. A lot of club and social tennis replaces that third set with a match tiebreak, sometimes called a super tiebreak or a champions tiebreak: first to 10 points with a margin of two, so 10-8 wins and 10-9 does not.

FinalPoint saves a match tiebreak as the deciding set, so the record reads 6-4, 3-6, 10-8. When the app works out the margin of a win it treats that 10-8 like a tiebreak set, not like a four-game gap, so a close finish never reads as a heavy defeat.

A tennis match is one record with every set inside it. Enter each set as you played it, 6-4, 3-6, 10-8, and the app stores the sets won as the result, with every set score kept on the record. A one-set match is recorded the same way, with one set, and it counts just the same towards your tennis EVO and your group's rankings.

The record form starts on singles, because that is how most tennis is played, and doubles is one tap away. In doubles all four players get the result on their record. Any score saves: a set cut short by the court booking or by fading light is kept as played, marked "Not a full set, saved as played", so a 4-3 still counts for the players in it.

Groups can fix their own format in settings, one set or the best of three, and the record form follows it.