Anyone for tennis?

27 de junio de 2019
Rafael Nadal (ESP) Source @ Wikimedia commons

Tennis is one of the most popular sports today and Wimbledon is one of the most famous tennis tournaments. The first Wimbledon was in 1877 and it is usually at the beginning of July. It is a ‘grass court’ competition. Tennis can be played on a grass court, a clay court or a hard court. Tennis has a lot of special vocabulary so in this post we are looking at the world of tennis in English! 


No 1 Court at Wimbledon. Source @ Wikimedia commons

Tennis is played by two opponents (a singles match) or by two pairs of opponents (a doubles match) on a tennis court. The players hit a tennis ball over a net with a racket. A professional tennis match will also have an umpire who makes decisions based on the rules, a linesman who helps the umpire and ball boys or ball girls who collect all the tennis balls. A major tournament like Wimbledon will have many courts and the finals in Wimbledon are held on the No 1 Court. The score is kept with a scoreboard.

The first hit of the ball is called the serve and if the serve is bad and it hits the net or goes outside the court it is called a fault. However, if the serve it really good and the opposing player cannot return the ball it is called an ace. Sometimes serves can be really, really fast. The fastest serve ever recorded serve was 263.4 km/h!

A scoreboard at Wimbledon. Source @ Wikimedia commons

Players hit the ball or rally the ball over the net but if a player’s opponent cannot return the ball or the opponent hits the ball outside the court then the player wins a point. A game begins at zero, which is called love in tennis. From love, the first point is 15, 30, 40 and then finally game point. If the players have the same score it is called all so 15 all means that both players have 15 points. The player who wins game point wins that particular game. When a player wins six games they win a set. The first player to win two or three sets wins the match. A player who only needs one more point to win the entire match is at match point. 

Tennis history

Watch Serena Williams win a game by serving four aces in Wimbledon 2012. Amazing! In this video can you see the court, the net, the rackets, the scoreboard, the ball girls and ball boys, the linemen and the umpire?

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Fran23 de enero de 2020 a las 08:58

I love tennis. I used to play when I was a child and now I try to attend at least Madrid Open. It is great!

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