What Does Love Mean in Tennis Scoring?
Love in the tennis scoring system translates to a score of zero within a single game. For example, if you’re serving and you win the first point of a game, then the score would be 15-love.
With that in mind, let’s do a quick review of how the score of love fits into a single game by outlining the point system quickly.
- Love: a score of zero
- 15: a single point
- 30: two points
- 40: three points
- Deuce: tied at 3 points
- Ad in: when the person serving wins a point at deuce; the score is ad in, or advantage in
- Ad out: when the person serving loses a point a deuce; the score is ad out, or advantage out
Players use the term “all” to express when the score is even at one or two points, i.e., 15-all or 30-all.
While the definition of love is simple, it can still trip players up. Let’s take a closer look at some examples with the score of love.
This was very helpful, I now understand a lot more than what I recently knew about tennis.
Hi Gigi,
Glad you found it helpful – thanks for the positive feedback.
All the best,
Jon