Tennis is an individual duel built around serve, return, break points, surface, ranking, and tournament draw.

This chapter gives you the background that childhood sports followers usually collect slowly through repeated matches, arguments, highlights, and newspaper reports. Read it as a foundation, then attach the ideas to real sports news using the source links below.

Scoring runs from points to games to sets to match. Love means zero, deuce means level at 40-40, advantage means one point from game. A tie-break decides a set when games are level by the tournament rule.

Serve and return shape the match. Holding serve means winning your service game. Breaking serve means winning the opponent's service game. Break points are pressure points.

Surface changes style. Grass rewards serve and fast points, clay rewards rallies and patience, hard courts balance speed and bounce.

Suppose a headline uses this topic but gives very little background. Do not begin by arguing. First identify the event and competition. Second identify the role of the main player, team, number, or condition. Third explain the consequence in one calm sentence. In this chapter, the first words to watch are serve, break, hold.

Read this chapter once for meaning, then open one source below and find a real example of the topic. Add three notes to your sports notebook: one vocabulary word, one sentence of context, and one question for later.

Watch highlights and count how many key points are serve points, return points, and rallies.