It’s even worse than that. There is no 45. It’s 15, 30, then a jump of 10 not 15 for the score of 40.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
19 points (85.2% liked)
ShowerThoughts
2020 readers
1 users here now
Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Ugh, I forgot that. The weirder part is that it would make no difference if it was 45 instead of 40
True, that’s a good point. Good match!
They also replace the 0 with the word love. When the score is 15-0, the announcer says 15 - love.
It's because love means nothing to a tennis player.
Sorry my coach loved that joke.
Tennis doesn't even use numbers if they are tied!
Isn't it only when they're tied at 40, at which point it's deuce and then advantage to whichever side is at game point. Whenever they're tied anywhere else like 15-15, don't they say 15 all.
Disclaimer my knowledge of tennis is pretty much limited to Mario Tennis games and Wii Sports
Here's the way I think you get to the tennis scoring system, which may not be accurate:
First, you start by scoring based on a clock face - in 15s, aiming to hit 60 (four 15s). So a quarter of a circle per point, and a full circle to win.
But, then you have the rule where someone must not hit 4 scores (60 points) to win but must have have 4 scores AND be up by 2 scores, not just 1. So for example, if both players are at 45 points, one of them needs a net of 2 more scores to win. To make this work and keep 60 as the number to win, you need to squeeze two more scores in between 45 and 60. So instead of 15s, you go by 10s. Of course two tens below 60 is 40 instead of 45, so you adjust the 45 down to 40. Thus the possible scores go 0,15,30,40,50,60.
Except once both players have at least 3 scores (40 points), all that matters is who is ahead, since they both qualify to win as soon as they are two scores ahead. Therefore there really is no 50, as you either go from 40 to win, or you both hit 40 and then the scores don't matter and you just talk about who has the advantage (one score ahead). So you have 0,15,30,40,Win
Man, if only the decimal system had been invented before clocks, they could simply make it "4 points with at least 2 point advantage", like 4-2, 5-3, 6-4, etc.
There's still the whole mess of using 2 extra layers of "score this much with 2 point advantage", because I guess people don't have anything better to do than watch a game go on for 6+ hours
They really didn't, though. You think the average factory worker was in the stand watching their betters hit those balls? And look at cricket ffs!
French Traditional. If it was imperial the points would be slightly smaller.