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2006-07-11 18:26:39 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Sports Tennis

4 answers

Tennis scoring has its origin in medieval numerology. The number 60 was considered to be a "good" or "complete" number back then, in about the same way you'd consider 100 to be a nice round figure today. The medieval version of tennis, therefore, was based on 60 -- the four points when 15, 30, 45 (which we abbreviate to 40) and 60, or game.

2006-07-11 18:30:16 · answer #1 · answered by Guzzy 5 · 0 0

The reason is because when calling out the score, people needed to be able to tell the difference between the set score and the game score. Set scores were usually decided before someone got to 15. Back then there were no tie breaks and sets usually lasted longer than the first to 6 games. Some time the sets were 6-2, 6-4 or sometimes they were 10-8 or 12-14. So now they needed to start the game scoring at 15, then 30 and then 40 and not 45. The score forty-five sounds like 40 to 5 or 4 to 5. Fifteen, thirty and forty are all one word scores, unlike say twenty-two, thirty-four, etc.
Now we can call out the score, 5-3, 40-30 and there is no confusion.

2006-07-12 19:28:59 · answer #2 · answered by hofertennis@sbcglobal.net 3 · 0 0

they just want to make it comlicated read "Arthur Ashe on Tennis " read the section on scoring.

2006-07-11 18:36:10 · answer #3 · answered by Andrea F 1 · 0 0

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/341

2006-07-13 06:33:12 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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