Tennis is a racquet game which belongs to the category of racquet sports. Tennis can be played between either two teams ("doubles") or two players ("singles"). Since tennis is a racquet sport players use stringed racquets to hit a ball (which, by the way, is rubber, hollow and covered in felt) over the net into the opponent's half of a court. Sometimes in some places tennis is called lawn tennis in order to tell it apart from real tennis which is also known as court tennis or royal tennis and is older type of the game played indoors on absolutely different kind of a court. Tennis was originated in England in the 19th century and spread first all through the English-speaking people, especially among the upper human classes.
Today tennis is one of Olympic sports played by all ages and at all levels of society in many countries throughout the world. The rules of the game have remained outstandingly unchanged since the early 19th century. Millions of people are a fond of tennis as a very spectator sport along with millions tennis players. The biggest popularity over the years have gained four Grand Slam tournaments.
A match in tennis typically involves from one to five sets. A set comprises a number of games and each game in turn consists of the points.
Tennis score in a match always consist of an odd number of several sets. The winner of a tennis match is the player who is the winner of more than half of the game's sets. The match concludes as soon as this condition is reached. Real tennis matches may be of five sets, which means that the winner is determined by first winning three sets, and of three sets where the winner is the player who first to win two sets.
Each set in tennis comprises series of games played with service switching between the games. A set ends when the count of winning games meets definite criteria. Usually, a player wins a tennis set when he or she wins minimum six games provided that the player has won at least two games more than the opponent.
Speaking about the tennis score, it must be said that each game in tennis consists of a series of points played when the same player is serving. A game is won by the player who has first won at least four points provided that the player has won at least two points more than the opponent. The running tennis score of each of the games is expressed in a style peculiar to tennis: score in a game from zero to three points is represented as zero (or "love"), fifteen, thirty, and forty correspondingly.
A game point takes place in tennis at any time when the player who is leading in the game requires just one more point to be the victor of the game. These terms are also applicable to sets (set points), matches (match points), and even championships (championship points). A break point takes place in a game when the returner, contrast it to the server, has a game point. It is of significance in professionals because break points occur less frequently.
Another situation pertaining to tennis score may happen when the player who is leading in a game has several chances to score the winning point. This circumstance in tennis score is called double game point (also may be double match point, etc) and even triple game point.