Tennis

Singles tennis is one player against one player on the singles court. Serve, rally, win points, build games and sets, and take the match under the agreed format.

A tennis match begins with a choice of serve, receive, or side. The server starts each point from behind the baseline and has two serve attempts to put the ball into the correct service box. After a legal serve, players rally by hitting the ball over the net and inside the court boundaries. The opponent wins the point if a player misses, hits out, hits into the net, double faults, or fails to return the ball before the allowed bounce count. Singles uses the narrower singles court; doubles uses the wider doubles alleys and team service/receiving order. Players switch ends on odd-numbered games. Most recreational and competitive matches are played as best of three sets, but formats can vary, including best of five, pro sets, short sets, no-ad scoring, or match tiebreaks.

Tennis scoring moves from points to games to sets to matches. Standard game points are called love, 15, 30, 40, and game; at deuce, a player or team normally needs two consecutive points to win the game. A set is commonly first to six games with a two-game margin, with a tiebreak at 6-6 in many formats. A tiebreak is usually first to seven points with a two-point margin. How You Rank currently records tennis variants as winner-only, so log the winner and put set scores in notes.

Record the winning player or team. Add the set score, singles or doubles, match format, and any special scoring rule such as no-ad, super tiebreak, short sets, or best of five.