🎾Competitions

The scoring descends from medieval French real tennis, and the leading theory ties 15-30-45 to the quarters of a clock face, with 45 later shortened to 40 for speed of calling. 'Deuce' comes from the French 'a deux' — two points needed to win. 'Love' for zero most likely derives from 'l'oeuf', the French for egg, describing the shape of a zero (the same logic as cricket's 'duck'), though some etymologists prefer 'playing for love', meaning for nothing. The structure itself is tactical genius: because points build into games and games into sets, not all points are equal — break points and set points concentrate pressure — and no lead is ever mathematically safe, which is why tennis produces so many famous comebacks.

Strictly, the Grand Slam means winning all four major championships — the Australian Open, Roland Garros (French Open), Wimbledon and the US Open — in a single calendar year. Only five singles players have ever done it: Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962 and 1969, the only double), Margaret Court (1970) and Steffi Graf (1988, who added Olympic gold for the only 'Golden Slam'). Colloquially, each of the four tournaments is now called 'a Grand Slam' or 'a major', and winning all four across a career — as Agassi, Serena Williams, Nadal and Djokovic did — is a 'career Grand Slam'. Holding all four at once across two seasons, as Djokovic did in 2015-16 and Serena did twice, is a non-calendar Slam.

Novak Djokovic and Margaret Court share the all-time record with 24 Grand Slam singles titles each. Djokovic reached 24 at the 2023 US Open, and all of his came in Open Era fields; Court won 13 of hers before the Open Era began in 1968, including 11 Australian titles in years when many top internationals skipped the trip — which is why many analysts treat Serena Williams's 23, all won in the professional era between 1999 and 2017, as the benchmark women's figure. Among other men, Rafael Nadal finished with 22 and Roger Federer with 20. Active leaders as of the end of the 2025 season: Carlos Alcaraz with 6 majors and Jannik Sinner with 4, with Iga Swiatek on 6 in the women's game.

The ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) runs the men's professional tour and the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) runs the women's tour; each operates its own tournaments, computer rankings and season-ending Finals. Both are separate from the four Grand Slams, which are owned by their national federations, and from the ITF, the sport's global governing body that oversees the rulebook, the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup, and the Olympic tournament. Billie Jean King founded the WTA in 1973; the men organised the ATP in 1972 and launched their computer rankings the following year. The tours share many combined events, including all four majors and several 1000-level tournaments, but they negotiate their own prize money and media deals — one reason directly comparing men's and women's records is so difficult.

Surface changes the physics of the bounce and therefore the tactics. Clay (Roland Garros) is slow and high-bouncing: rallies lengthen, heavy topspin is rewarded, players slide into shots, and big servers lose much of their edge — which is why clay specialists exist. Grass (Wimbledon) is the opposite: the ball skids low and fast, slice stays below the knees, serves dominate, and points are short. Hard courts (Australian and US Opens) sit in between with the truest bounce, favouring all-court players. The differences were once so extreme that between Borg in 1980 and Nadal in 2008 no man won Roland Garros and Wimbledon back to back; modern surface homogenisation has narrowed the gap, but winning that 'Channel Slam' — as Alcaraz has done — remains the sport's best test of adaptability.

John Isner versus Nicolas Mahut, first round of Wimbledon 2010: 11 hours and 5 minutes spread across three days, with Isner winning 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 — a 138-game fifth set that alone lasted over eight hours. The two combined for 216 aces, and the scoreboard on Court 18, never programmed for such numbers, temporarily froze. The match is directly responsible for a rule change: after further marathon deciders, all four Grand Slams agreed in 2022 on a uniform final-set format — a 10-point tiebreak at 6-6 — making a repeat mathematically impossible. The longest major final remains the 2012 Australian Open, where Djokovic beat Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5 in 5 hours 53 minutes.