Tennis Scoring Origins: Love, Deuce, and 15-30-40

The scoring itself — the settled part

This part is not in dispute. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the USTA describe the same system.

A match is made up of sets. A set is made up of games. A game is made up of points. In each game, the server’s score is called first.

• Love is the word for zero points. The ITF puts it plainly: in tennis, love means zero.
• 15 is one point.
• 30 is two points.
• 40 is three points.
• Game — a player wins the game by winning at least four points, with a lead of at least two points.

Deuce is the name for the tied score when both players have won three points each — 40-40. From deuce, a player must win two points in a row to win the game.

Advantage is the name for the point won right after deuce. If the player with advantage wins the next point too, they win the game. If the other player wins it, the score goes back to deuce.

A set is won by the first player to win six games, with a lead of at least two games. Most matches are best of three sets. Some men’s matches are best of five sets.

That is the system. Why it uses these words and numbers is a different question — and a much less settled one.

The honest answer about the origins

Asked why “love” became the call for zero points, the answer from the museum side is blunt. In NPR’s reporting, which quotes the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum, the point is made directly: historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.

So treat everything below as what it is: theories. Some are popular. None is proven.

Theory: the numbers came from a clock face

Theory — not proven. The LTA (the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body for tennis in Britain) presents this as one theory: that tennis scoring comes from French medieval times, where people would use a clock face to keep score — 15, 30, and 45, with the hand moving to 60 when the game was won.

In this theory, 45 was later changed to 40 so that a game could not be won by a one-point difference when the scores were tied. The point after deuce moved the clock forward by 10 — to 50 — and the next point won the game at 60. That first point after deuce is what came to be called advantage.

The LTA labels this “one theory.” It does not present it as settled fact, and neither does this page.

Theory: the numbers came from moving up the court

Theory — not proven. The LTA also presents a second, different theory: that the scoring comes from jeu de paume, an older French game. In this theory, the court was 45 feet on a side, and a player moved forward after winning a point — 15 feet after the first point, 30 feet after the second, and then only 10 feet more, to 40 feet, after the third.

Note that this theory and the clock-face theory cannot both be the whole story. The sources offer both, side by side, as theories. That is a good sign of how unsettled the question is.

Theory: “love” came from the French word for egg

Theory — popular, but unproven and disputed. One well-known theory is that “love” comes from the French word l’oeuf, which means “the egg.” The idea is that an egg is shaped like a zero, the way people also say “goose egg” or “duck’s egg” for zero in other settings, and that English speakers may have misheard or mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.”

This theory is often told as if it were fact. The museum reporting does not support that confidence. In the NPR piece, a lexicographer quoted in the story says some historians believe this derivation — and also says he is not convinced that is the answer, noting that the matching expression does not appear in French. So: a charming and popular theory, but a disputed one.

Theory: “love” came from playing for love — for nothing

Theory — not proven. A second theory for “love” is that it comes from the idiom “for the love of the game” — playing even when you have scored nothing. In the NPR reporting, the Hall of Fame museum’s collections manager says he prefers this theory, and the lexicographer calls it the most plausible of the theories, because the idiom was used in English before tennis was popularized.

“Most plausible” is still not “proven.” A related variation mentioned in the same reporting is that the word could have come from the Dutch word lof, meaning honor. That, too, is presented only as a possibility.

Theory: “deuce” came from the French word for two

Theory — widely repeated, still an origin claim. It is often said that “deuce” comes from the French word for two, deux — sometimes given as à deux, “at two.” The link to the game is clear enough: at deuce, a player needs two points in a row to win the game.

The Hall of Fame museum’s collections manager, quoted by NPR, gives this French connection for deuce while discussing the game’s French influence. Because this page labels every origin claim as a theory — and because the same reporting stresses that historians do not know the origins for sure — this page presents the deux link as a theory too, not as a proven fact.

What we can say for sure

The rules are sure. Love means zero. The points run 15, 30, 40, game. Deuce is three points each, and from there you must win two in a row. Those are facts, stated the same way by the ITF and the USTA.

The origins are not sure. A clock face, a walk up an old French court, an egg, playing for love, a French word for two — each is a theory the sources offer with words like “one theory,” “it is thought,” and “historians don’t really know for sure.” Anyone who tells you one of them is simply the answer is going further than the sources do.