Five full days after setting out to start writing about the tie-breaker, I finally get around to actually writing about the rule as it appears in the Friend at Court.
During a tie-break game, points are scored “Zero”,“1”, “2”, “3”, etc. The first player/team to win seven points wins the “Game” and “Set”, provided there is a margin of two points over the opponent(s). If necessary, the tie-break game shall continue until this margin is achieved.
USTA Friend at Court, ITF Rules of Tennis, Section 5.b
This is essentially the “Philadelphia Version” of the tie-break described in yesterday’s post. This same section of the Friend at Court continues describing the service sequence.
The player whose turn it is to serve shall serve the first point of the tiebreak game. The following two points shall be served by the opponent(s) (in doubles, the player of the opposing team due to serve next). After this, each player/team shall serve alternately for two consecutive points until the end of the tie-break game (in doubles, the rotation of service within each team shall continue in the same order as during that set).
USTA Friend at Court, ITF Rules of Tennis, Section 5.b
One of the hallmarks (alternatively criticism) of the writing I do for my day job is my frequent overuse of parenthetical statements. These are frequently required as a pressure valve release of slightly relevant but extraneous thoughts in my head. With that background, I feel compelled to note that I did not write the last section of the ITF Rules of Tennis quoted above nor did I add the parenthetical annotations.
This section also confronts me with the realization that my initial assumption about the structure of the rules is incorrect. I had been assuming that what was in the ITF Rules of tennis reprinted in the front of the USTA Friend at Court was largely what was inherited from the All England Club.
The Tie-Break game was clearly not a part of those original rules, so this means that the main body is altered from time to time. My new theory is that it is significantly harder to change the main body than one of the appendixes, so it doesn’t happen very often and only for momentous modifications of the game. The tie-breaker definitely falls into that category.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
