Tennis can be a quite complex sport when it comes to rules. For a beginner, these rules can be quite intimidating. Even if you have played the sport for several years, you might still come across a rule or two that you had no idea existed. And if you watch tennis on tv, you will see that even the top players in the world will have arguments with umpires about certain rules. Tennis rules cover several different areas of the game, which include scoring, violations, court boundaries, time limits, and more. On top of that, different rules apply to singles and doubles matches. While the list of rules is quite extensive, it does not have to be complicated. In this article, we will cover every tennis rule you need to know. Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced tennis player, you should be able to enjoy the information below and, by the end of the post, feel like you have a great understanding of tennis rules.
Before getting to the actual rules of tennis, it is important to understand the layout of a tennis court. By doing so, it will be easier to understand the scoring rules and the differences between singles and doubles. Below is a tennis court diagram with the basic specifications.
When the lines indicated above are combined, they form the areas indicated below.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the layout of a tennis court, you are ready to learn about how the actual game works. The first part of the learning process is to understand what a tennis point is.
In essence, a tennis point is the most basic unit in the tennis scoring system. A tennis match is nothing more than several points played in a row. Every time you see players hitting shots, they are playing points. And after a player wins enough points, he or she wins the match. So how do you play a point?
When a tennis match starts, the players need to decide which one of the players will start the match serving. This is usually done by a coin toss, with the winner getting to choose who starts serving. The player who is serving is called the server, and the player not serving is called the receiver. After that step is done, players will start playing the first point.
In order to do so, the player who starts serving must go to his side of the court and stand behind the baseline. On the first point, he will start on the right side of the center mark. On the second, he will start on the left side, and will alternate every point after. In order to successfully start a point, the player who is serving must hit his serve (see what a serve is here) on the service box located over the net and diagonally from him. So if a player is standing on the right side of the court, she needs to hit her serve on the right service box across the net, and vice versa.
A player has the right to two serves on each point. If she misses her first serve, she has another attempt to hit the service box on her second serve. If the player misses both serves (either at the net or outside the service box), she has hit a double fault and consequently lost the point.
If the player was able to hit the serve inside the service box, the point will have officially started. From then on, each player’s goal is to hit the ball over the net and inside the court area, until one of them wins the point. After the ball has bounced on the service box for the first time, players can either hit the ball directly in the air or let it bounce once on their court. There are 5 ways a player can win a point:
Another important tennis rule is regarding lets. In tennis, a let is short for let’s play again, and it can happen in two different ways. First, a let can happen if a player’s serve hits the net and subsequently bounces inside the correct service box. If that is the case, the player has a chance to retake that same serve.
The second occurrence of a let will happen if any type of interference happens between a point. Whether the let is caused by a spectator yelling outside the court, by a second ball entering the court, or by a crazy fan streaking the court, it can be called out by either player or by the umpire. If this type of let happens, the point is replayed with the server getting back his two serves.
After understanding how tennis points work, you are ready to move on to the most complex part of the tennis rules: the scoring system. We have written a complete guide on how the scoring system works (you can check it here), so we will keep it short and sweet in this article.
The first part is to understand that tennis follows a pretty unique counting system. When a player wins points, his points will accumulate until he wins a game. Once the player wins enough games, he will win a set. When a player wins multiple sets, he will have finally won the match. So when reading the next few paragraphs, keep in mind that the scoring system follows this pattern:
Point→ Game → Set → Match
As we have mentioned above, players can win a point in 5 different ways. Once they win points, they get on the scoreboard. Instead of counting points like 1, 2, 3, 4, tennis points are counted as 0, 15, 30, and 40. So if the player who is serving wins the first point of the match, the score goes to 15 x 0. If he loses the first point, the score is 0 x 15 (you always count the score of the server first).
Once a player has a point score of 40 and wins another point, he will have won a game. If both players are tied at 40 x 40 (also called deuce), the first player to obtain a margin of two points wins the game. So if the score is 40 x 40, the counting sequence is 40 → Ad → Game. If the score is Ad x 40 and the player with Ad loses the point, the score goes back to 40 x 40.
After a player wins a game, the point score goes back to 0 x 0 and the server and receiver switch roles. Players keep accumulating games until one of them wins 6 games. Whenever a player wins 6 games, he will have won a set. If players are tied at 5 games to 5, the first one to win 7 wins the set. If the players tie again at 6 games to 6, they need to play a tiebreak.
A tiebreak is a special type of game, designed to break a tie between two players (hence the name). The point scoring system ina tiebreak works differently than other games (0, 15, 30, 40), and you should count the points using the regular numerical system (0, 1, 2, 3, …). The first player to reach a total of 7 points wins the tiebreak, and consequently the set. If players are tied at 6 points to 6 in the tiebreak, the first player to obtain a 2-point margin wins the tiebreak.
The serving turns also work differently during a tiebreak. The player who begins serving serves for one point, and then the players switch roles. From then on, each player will serve for two points until the tiebreak is over. The player who started the tiebreak as the receiver begins the new set as the server.
In most tournaments, the first player to win 2 sets wins the match. During Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and US Open), a player needs to win 3 sets in order to win a match.
If you were able to understand the rules mentioned above, that means by now you understand about 85% of all tennis rules! From this point on, things should get a lot easier, and you will be done quickly. If for some reason you don’t get how the scoring system works yet, below you will see a video tutorial we made on how everything works.
One of the most recently developed rules is the clock rule, which was designed as a way to make tennis matches faster. Some players used to take too long between points when they were serving, so the clock rule was able to end that.
According to the clock rule, players have 25 seconds between the end of one point and the start of the next point. The first time a player goes over the 25 seconds, he or she receives a warning. After that, each time the player takes longer than 25 seconds to start a point he or she will lose a serve. The receiver must play according to the server’s pace.
Another relevant set of rules is in regard to violations. The most important tennis institutions (Association of Tennis Professionals, International Tennis Federation, United States Tennis Association) have a similar code of conduct, and if a player acts in disagreement with such code of conduct, he is considered to have committed a violation. A violation can lead to fines, the loss of points, games, and matches, and even suspension from tournaments.
The most frequent tennis violations are:
While the violations above are the most common, there are other rules in existence as well. Tennis is considered a very elegant sport, and players should behave accordingly. If a player commits the violations mentioned above, the punishments usually follow the pattern below:
Some of the rules for doubles work differently than singles. For one, as we mentioned earlier, the court is extended by the doubles alleys. Second, serving turns work differently in doubles. Each doubles pair will take turns serving and receiving, similarly to the way they would if it were a singles match. However, the same player from a doubles pair should not serve twice in a row. So if a doubles match was being played by player A and player B against player X and player Y, a sample serving rotation would look like A, X, B, Y, A, X, …). Once a set ends, the players may choose to switch serving turns, which means that a player from a doubles pair could be the last one to serve in a set and the first to serve in the next set.
Another extra rule is that the doubles pair must decide, before the set starts, who is responsible for receiving serves on the left side and right side of the court. After the set starts, the players need to stick to those sides until the set is over. When a set ends, players must choose to switch sides.
Finally, when a player is serving, his partner might stand anywhere on the court. While beginners usually tend to cover the other side of the court, professional tennis players might choose to stay on the same side as the server.
Some of the rules mentioned below are not known by many people, but they do exist. By understanding them, you will be a step above every other tennis player.
Even though that was a lot, you made it through the end. If you understand the rules mentioned above, you understand tennis better than the majority of the population. If you do have any further questions regarding tennis rules, let us know in the comment section below and we will get you an answer!
I got a chance to play junior and professional tournaments across the world, and in 2015 I began playing as the #1 player for Pepperdine University, a great division 1 school. I’ve had the chance to play against great names of the new generation, like Christian Garin, Cameron Norrie, and Kyle Edmund. I’m extremely passionate about the mental and technical part of the game. Oh, and I had lunch with Brad Gilbert once.
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Hi there! We're Gui and Karue. At MyTennisHQ, we have all played junior, college, and professional tennis. We both feel like tennis has given us opportunities that we would have never had otherwise, so we started myTennisHQ with the intent of helping more and more people become familiar with the sport. Here, we’ll share as much knowledge and experience as we can, so we hope you enjoy it!
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