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Believe us: With the Open fast approaching, itd be your ad-in to study up.

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How does tennis scoring work?

Chances are youve heard the phrase game, set, match before.

Well, guess what: Its a tennis thing!

These words describe the three phases of the sport.

Games come first, followed by sets, and, finally, matches.

How do you score a point in tennis?

Youre going to need to score points if you want to win games.

The good news is, there are afew different waysto get this done.

you’re able to also score a point if your opponent smashes a return into the net.

Another cool thing: you could actually score a pointand technically even win a gamewithoutevertouching the ball.

If your opponent biffs a serve, thats called a fault.

How in the world do you keep track of these points?

For tennis tyros, the scoring system is one of the more befuddling aspects of the sport.

But its actually pretty easy to digest once you learn a few basic terms.

First of all, the scoring:

The term all refers to a tied score.

For example, if both players have scored one point each, youd announce that as 15-all.

If both players have scored three points each (so, 40-40), you use the term deuce.

Keep in mind: The score is announced with the servers score mentioned first.

How do you win a game in tennis?

This is where it gets a little tricky.

Looking at the score breakdown above, it appears the fourth point wins the game.

Yes, a player must score at least four points to win a game.

Thats when two other terms come into play: ad-in and ad-out.

If youre serving and you win the point after deuce, its ad-in (or your advantage).

If you score another point while its ad-in, you win the game.

If you bungle a point when its ad-in, it goes back to deuce.

If your opponent scores a point next, its ad-out.

If you fight back with a point after that?

Well, then were back to deuce again.

Okay, but how do you actuallywinwin?

How many games and sets are enough?

If the score in a tiebreaker gets to 6-6, the player must nab two pointsin a rowto win.

If youre curious to know more, check out this handy guide fromOlympics.com.)

Okay, so that takes care of gamesandsets.

Which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle: the match.

Who should you watch at the US Open?

They can be sure to expect stiff competition.

Osaka and Andreescu were named as wild cards for the tournament on August 14.

To see the entire main draw list (plus alternates), clickhere.

And thats match point!

(a.k.a, a wrap for this guide).

One of the best ways to put your newfound knowledge to the test?

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