Tennis has hundreds of rules governing equipment, facilities, scoring systems, player eligibility and other facets of the game. The basic rules are fairly simple for anyone wanting to begin playing the game as they learn the strokes and shots. To speed up matches and simplify the game's unique scoring system, the International Tennis Federation and many national, scholastic and local organizations offer several scorekeeping variations.
Serving Rules
To get started playing tennis, you serve the ball to your opponent. You must stand behind the baseline, which is the horizontal line at the end of the court, stand to one side of the center service line and serve to the opposite service box. You must hit your serve out of the air before it bounces, and it must land in the service box without touching the net. If you do not succeed at this, you get a second try, but if the second attempt also fails, you lose the point. If the serve hits the net and lands in the service box, you play a let, or repeat the serve. There is no limit to the number of lets you get.
Playing Rules
Once the server serves a good serve, play begins. The receiver must let the serve bounce, returning the ball over the net, inside either the singles or doubles boundaries, depending on whether two or four people are playing. From that point on, you may let the ball bounce or hit it out of the air. A point continues as long as the ball doesn't bounce twice, stop in the net, touch a player or anything she wears or carries, or go out of bounds. You make calls on your own side of the net, giving any benefit of the doubt to your opponent. If the ball touches any part of a boundary line, even if most of the ball is outside the line, the shot is good and the point continues.
Traditional Scoring
The basic scoring system features games, sets and tie-breaks. To win a game you must win four points with a two-point margin of victory. A set consists of the first player to win six games, with a two-game margin. If you and your opponent each win six games, you'll play a tie-break. During a tie-break, the player who was to serve the next game serves one point to the deuce court, which is the service court you serve to in the first point of a game. The next player serves for two points, starting in the ad court each time. You'll switch ends of the court after every six points. The first player to win seven points, with a two-point margin, wins the set.
Scoring Variations
To shorten matches, you can use a variety of scoring systems. You can use the no-ad scoring system to play games, which awards the game to the first player to win four points. At 3-3, the receiver chooses from which court---deuce or ad---she wishes to receive serve for the final, sudden-death point. Instead of playing best-of-three sets for a match, you can play a pro set, in which the first player to win eight or 10 games wins the match. You can use a two-game margin of victory to decide a pro set, or use a tie-break. To eliminate long tie-breaks, you can use the nine-point format, with the first player winning five points the winner. The first player serves two points, starting in the deuce court. The next player serves two points and so on, until someone wins five points. You switch ends of the court after four points. If the score is tied at 4-4, the final server continues to serve and the receiver chooses on which side of the court to receive the last point.
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