Scoring

Scoring defines tennis. A game which uses the same scoring system as real tennis - the four point game, to be won by a two point margin, scored in units of fifteen, with chases - is a form of real tennis or is related to it. A game which does not use at least some of these elements is some other form of ball game.

The earliest mention of any of these elements in surviving literature was of a chase in 1316 (the same year in which Louis X died following a game of paume) and the next was in 1354, both in French texts, so it appears that the scoring system dates back to at least 1300.

15 - 30 - 40 - Game

We can safely say two things about the origin of the unusual scoring system used in tennis. The first is that the original form of scoring was 15 - 30 - 45 - Game; the second is that it was based on the medieval sexagesimal system.

Scoring by fifteens

There is ample evidence in older texts that 45, not 40, was the score for winning the third point. In some European handball games, 45 is still used.

In his Agincourt ballad, written shortly after the battle of 1415, Jan van den Berghe asked why should a tennis player get 15 points for winning one stroke. Scaino, writing in 1555, talks about 45, not 40, in references to scoring. Writing in 1783, Manevieux says that the game is 60 points, divided into fifteens, and Barcellon used 45 in 1800.

Forty-five became 40 through abbreviation and it is believed that it happened first in England. One source has suggested that it occurred at a time when scoring was in Latin and forty-five - quadraginta cinque - was too long for players to bother with.

You can witness the same form of abbreviation when playing tennis today. Fifteen-all is sometimes abbreviated to “fiff-all” or “five-all”, thirty-fifteen to “thirty-five” and so on.

If someone can work out who invented this method of scoring, or why, they’ll have discovered the beginnings of tennis.

The four point game

But why four points to a game? No-one knows. Scaino, writing in 1555, gives a long and tedious ex post facto rationalisation of why a game should comprise four points, and the need to win by a two point margin, but he clearly had no idea of the origin of either the four point a game or scoring by fifteens. And that was in 1555!

There has been a lot of discussion by writers about the origin of scoring by fifteens and very little discussion about the four point game which must be won by a two point margin. This is at the heart of real tennis (and modern tennis).

The two elements must be related and there is chicken and the egg type issue of which came first. Who’s to say that the four point game did not come first and that scoring by fifteens is merely a means of implementing it?

Medieval coins

It has been suggested that the origin of tennis scoring was in gambling on the outcome of games. One version of the theory holds that certain medieval lead based coins with denominations of 60 units could be broken into quarters and one quarter bet on each point.

There are a number of problems with this theory. One is what would happen if the score was at 45-30 and then went to game? There would be six quarters on the table, not four. Also, why chop up coins and put them down on each point when you could just bet a whole coin on the outcome of each game? Another problem is that you would be destroying coins that you might need to buy things with!

One medieval coin, the Gros Tournois (first issued in 1266 by Louis IX), was valued at 15 pence (deniers) at the beginning of the 14th century. It has been suggested that this could have been a betting unit in medieval times and hence been the origin of tennis scoring.

The theory draws on the Gros Tournois being in circulation throughout Europe coupled with two German towns - Nuremberg in the 13C and Munich in the 14C - passing laws to limit gambling stakes to 60 pennies. This requires one enormous stretch of the imagination. The Gros Tournois was originally worth 12 pennies and its German equivalents, the Prager groschen (issued in 1300) and the Meissner groschen (1338), were also worth 12 pennies. Thus, today, in english, a gross is worth 12.

The theory says that a French coin was adopted as a gambling unit in one or two German cities at a point in time when it was worth 15 pennies and gambling stakes were limited to 60 pennies, and that unit of scoring then spread back to France and throughout Europe for all handball games. I don’t buy it.

It is better to accept that we do not know the origin of scoring by fifteens.

Six games to a set

Manevieux says that a match in Paris is eight games and a match in the country is six games. He is presumedly referring to what we would now call a set. He also says that a match must be won by by a two game margin.

The six game set has become the norm and has found its way into lawn tennis as well as real tennis. The two game margin is also a feature of scoring in lawn tennis but not, any more, in real tennis, where a set can by won 6-5.

Scaino records that in his day there were also double games and triple games. If a player won a game to love he would be awarded two games for the win. If he won a game after having been down 0-40, he was awarded three games for the win. Double and triple games disappeared a long time ago, but they must have made life interesting.

The sexagesimal system

The sexagesimal system works to 60, just as the metric system works to 100. The beauty of the sexagesimal system, and the reason that it was adopted by so many early civilisations, is that many numbers can be divided into 60.

One remnant of this system is found in French numbers: the word for 70 is soixante-dix (60+10), although septante has come into use.

A game of tennis comprises four points. If we think of each point as being a quarter of a game, then four lots of 15 adding to 60 makes sense under the sexagesimal system.

The best example of the sexagesimal system is time: 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour. Roger Morgan, however, points out that the clock face, with hours and seconds, could not have been the basis for scoring in tennis as it was not invented until about 1656 when Dutch astronomer Christiaans Huygens adapted the pendulum to clock-making.

The sexagesimal system is very old, dating back to Babylonian times, so it could have been adopted for scoring in early forms of tennis at virtually any point in the history of civilisation. This must be a comfort to those who believe that the game of tennis dates back to ancient times but it is a curse to those who would like to use it to find the origin of tennis scoring.