crumb#005: Game, Set, Match- The Beauty and Brutality of Tennis

What Tennis Taught Me About Love, Loss, and Starting at Zero

I still vividly remember the 2008 Wimbledon final between Rafa and Federer- or at least a good chunk of that nearly five-hour epic, dragged out by bouts of rain to over seven hours. It’s one of my first, and one of my best memories of the sport- not just because it was the first match of tennis that I watched but also because it was the first match I watched with my dad. A Federer fan, my dad just wouldn’t shut up about his grace, the way he hit an ace; his charm on and off the pitch, and how there wasn’t anyone else like him.

And it’s true, Roger was majestic- gliding on the pitch effortlessly as if that’s what he had been ordained by God to do. But there was something about the other guy that caught my attention more. He looked more mortal- brimming with energy so infectious that I was shouting on this side of the television set with every point that was being played, with no knowledge of the game, as if my cheers might travel seven thousand kilometres and somehow help him win. Maybe they did. I’d like to think they did.

And it’s a basal human instinct as well, isn’t it- your dad picks a player, you pick the other. Maybe through that you start carving a little corner of your own identity.

So there I was, trying to make sense of a game that seemed to follow rules plucked from another planet: starting from love, making sense till it reached 30, and then somehow losing track and closing at 40 and game. The sets were equally weird, with some closing at 6-4, and the last one ending at a 9-7. And everything in between was punctuated by deuces and aces, like a card game invented by poets, or a playground argument turned ritual.

It was at 9-7 that I collapsed from my chair, around the same time that Nadal collapsed onto the grass in disbelief and wonder as the last of the daylight faded in London.

Somewhere between disbelief and awe, I think I fell in love with the game.

And all these years later, I still can’t help but marvel at just how delightfully peculiar this sport is and how impossible it is to explain to anyone watching for the first time. I still catch myself pausing mid-explanation, struggling to justify the peculiarities of the game, as if the rules were written by someone with a fondness for riddles.

The more I watch, and the more I read, the more I realise that tennis isn’t just a sport; it’s a beautifully bizarre tradition stitched together by centuries of history, strange customs, and contradictions that somehow still work. It’s a sport that revels in its oddities, and I, like Andre Agassi in his unforgettable autobiography Open, find myself both baffled and bewitched by its strange beauty.

I remember the first time I actually tried to explain the scoring to someone else- my friend, who was tuning in for his first game. He asked if players needed four points to win a game. I said they sort of did, and started listing the scores: love, 15, 30, 40. He paused and asked why it was 40 and not 45. I opened my mouth to explain but realised I didn’t have the faintest idea. Then he raised an eyebrow and asked if zero was being called “love.” I nodded and said it was because of an egg- which sounded even more ridiculous once I’d said it out loud.

As stumped as I was in my attempt to explain the egg back then, I’ll try to do a bit better today. So apparently, the use of “love” comes from the French word l’œuf- which means egg. Because, well, an egg is round and kind of looks like a zero. So when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got “love.” Makes no real sense, but it sounds nicer than saying “zero,” I guess.

Or maybe it comes from somewhere softer. From the idea that you play not for money, not for ranking points or trophies, but because you love it. Because you have to. Because something inside you won’t let you stop. “For the love of the game,” as they say.

But no one really knows. Not for sure. And that’s the thing about tennis- it doesn’t hand you hard answers, only hard courts. It gives you riddles, metaphors, rituals that feel like they’ve been whispered down through generations. And after a while, you stop needing the truth. You start believing in the poetry instead.

Love means zero. And in tennis, sometimes zero is the most honest place to start.

And then there’s the game score itself: 15, 30, 40. It starts off making sense, marching in neat increments- until suddenly, it doesn’t. The most popular explanation takes us back to medieval France, where scoring was said to mimic the face of a clock. Picture a clock divided into quarters: each point moves the hand forward- first to 15, then 30, then 45, and finally up to 60 to signal the end of the game.

But somewhere along the way, “45” was trimmed to “40,” likely because it rolled off the tongue more easily in the heat of a match. That’s quarante-cinq being shortened to quarante, which kinda makes you see why they’d do it.

Some suggest this change also helped accommodate the drama of deuce and advantage: with both players at 40, the next point could be marked as “advantage” (sometimes imagined as 50), and the game would be won at 60.

Of course, the deeper you dig, the fuzzier it gets- maybe it was a linguistic shortcut, maybe it was just tradition evolving in real time. But after chasing these explanations down internet rabbit holes, I’ve realised that the people who invented tennis didn’t seem too bothered by logic or clarity- they were crafting a ritual, not a rulebook. And that is part of the magic. The numbers are as much a part of tennis’s mystique as the white clothes at Wimbledon or the clay stains at Roland Garros.

And then there’s “deuce”- that curious word for a deadlock, when both players are tied at 40–40 and neither can win without taking two points in a row. Advantage, deuce. Advantage, deuce. Back and forth, the tension mounting with each rally. Sometimes it feels as if it could go on forever. In those moments, tennis becomes less a sport and more a test of patience and willpower, a quiet battle of endurance played out point by point.

But somewhere, that’s the whole point.

Tennis isn’t a sport that hurries. It builds. It escalates. It gets inside your head. One moment you’re casually watching the score tick along, and the next, you’re leaning forward in your chair, heart in your mouth, whispering to no one, just one more point.

I wonder how the players stop it from getting into their heads- it’s as much of a mountain to climb mentally as it is physically. Just you and the opponent. Nothing else. No one else to talk to but your inner voice- cheering you on at every sweet hit, weighing you down with every miss. It’s like you’re fighting more against your own doubts and demons than trying to exploit those in your opponent.

Even the greatest players felt this strange, relentless pressure. Agassi describes the court as “a place of suffering, a world of pain and endurance,” where every deuce is a fresh trial, a new opportunity to dig deeper than you thought possible. He confesses that sometimes he hated tennis, hated the endless battles that seemed to stretch on without mercy, but also admits that these moments of deadlock- these spiritual tests- were where he discovered what he was truly made of.

“Losses are not only an opportunity to learn, but a measure of who we are.”

Deuce after deuce, point after point, tennis becomes less about the score and more about resilience- about finding something within yourself, again and again, to keep going.

And if that weren’t enough, tennis throws in one more twist- the ground itself moves under your feet. Not literally, but spiritually. The game changes depending on the surface you’re playing on: hard, clay, or grass. Each one has its own temperament, its own secrets. You can be a king on one and look completely lost on another. It’s like fighting the same war in three different terrains.

Each surface requires you to summon a different version of yourself, each tournament stirs a different kind of dread. You never just pack your rackets and shoes; you pack your doubts, routines, memories of past losses, and the ghosts of surfaces that never feel like home.

Clay was the first surface that made me feel something visceral about tennis. There’s a kind of poetry in how slow it is. It forces you to wait- to build, to think, to suffer. The rallies stretch like conversations you don’t want to end. Every point is a question, and every answer comes layered in spin and patience. And then there’s Rafa. When he moved across the red dirt, it was like he was writing something with his shoes- lines, arcs, chapters of a battle only he truly understood. He crafted the match with sweat and will. That quote of his- “You don’t win on clay. You endure”- never felt like just a line. It felt like a truth you live by.

Grass, on the other hand, felt like a dream I didn’t fully understand. Wimbledon has that glow about it- like watching tennis behind a cathedral’s stained glass. Everything’s pristine, refined, like time slows down not because of the rallies but because of the reverence. White and wonderful. But playing or even just trying to follow the rhythm on grass is chaos. The bounce is unpredictable. The pace is sharp. It’s a chess match played at blitz speed. Federer moved like the court was custom-made for him. He never fought the surface; he flowed with it. But for everyone else, it feels like dancing on dew. You’re always a moment away from slipping.

And then there’s hard court. The supposed equaliser. It's where most people begin, and maybe that’s why it feels the most honest. It gives back what you put in- no tricks, no traditions. But it’s also the cruelest in its own quiet way. You don’t feel it right away, but over time, it wears you down. Hard court doesn’t ask for your soul like clay or your grace like grass. It demands repetition. Resilience. Your best version, again and again. It’s where the game gets loud. It’s where the sport becomes a grind. And it’s where modern legends are made.

Somewhere along the way, these surfaces became more than just practical choices. Where you learned to play, often defined who you became as a player. Some adapted. Others never could.

Once you start watching tennis, you’ll find that four names start to rise above the rest- Wimbledon, Roland Garros, the US Open, the Australian Open. The Grand Slams. The sacred four. They aren’t just tournaments; they are the Deathly Hallows of the sport, the enchanted relics that shape the rhythm of the tennis season. You could feel it in the way the players enter the court, in the reverence of the crowds, in the history baked into every corner of these stadiums.

But why these four? Why not five? Or ten? Who decided these were the chosen ones?

Like most things in tennis, the answer lies somewhere between tradition, coincidence, and the long shadow of empire. In the early 20th century, tennis was exploding in popularity- propelled by Britain's colonial influence and the rising prestige of amateur athletics. Each of the four majors began as national championships: Wimbledon in 1877, the US in 1881, France in 1891, and Australia in 1905. For years, they were regional affairs, closed off from the rest of the world. It wasn’t until 1925 that all four finally opened their doors to international players, forming the rough outline of the global circuit we now call the Grand Slams.

The thing about legends? They don’t always begin like legends. And that’s exactly the kind of breadcrumb I love stumbling upon- those little quirks of history that hide in plain sight until you start tugging at the thread. Like the term Grand Slam. Today, it echoes with prestige. Four tournaments, four continents, one impossible dream. But trace it back, and it doesn’t begin on a tennis court at all. It starts at a card table. Bridge, of all things.

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Although I don’t really know much about the game itself or how it is played, but in bridge, a “grand slam” is the ultimate coup: winning every single trick in a hand, a feat that leaves your opponents blinking in disbelief. The term was rich with drama, borrowed from a world where fortunes could change on a single card and the air was thick with anticipation.

But how did this bit of card table bravado end up defining tennis greatness? The link traces back to 1933. That year, Australian Jack Crawford won the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon- three of the four major tennis titles. Heading into the US Championships, he was one match away from sweeping them all in a single calendar year.

As Crawford stood on the cusp of history, it was The New York Times journalist John Kieran who made the leap- drawing a parallel between Crawford’s near-sweep and the rare, all-or-nothing triumph known from another arena. Crawford lost that final, but the phrase caught on. It had drama, weight, and just the right kind of flair. Even in defeat, he’d given tennis a new myth to chase.

From then on, the term lived a double life. It became shorthand for the four cornerstone tournaments. But it also became a mythical quest: win all four in a single calendar year, and you don’t just collect trophies- you carve your name into the bedrock of sport. So next time you hear “Grand Slam,” remember: it’s not just about tennis. The legend, as always, was born in the most unexpected place.

There’s also beauty in the fact that entire matches unfold beneath a quiet spell of controlled superstition- rituals woven seamlessly into routine, like a defence mechanism against the unpredictable nature of the game. Maybe that’s part of what makes tennis so deeply human: the small, familiar gestures we cling to, searching for order and comfort amidst the chaos of competition.

And let’s not forget the soundscape of tennis: grunts that echo across stadiums, strings that sing or snap, the rhythmic applause that begins politely and crescendos into a roar, and the occasional fit of rage that leads to the complete obliteration of the tennis racket.

Human after all.

“It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love. The basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature.”

That’s how Andre Agassi put it in Open, and I don’t think anything I write can explain the game the way these lines do. Every point, every set, every match is its own story. There’s a beginning and an end, there’s conflict, momentum, breakdown, recovery. And above all, there’s the strange, unforgiving aloneness of it all.

On the morning that this year’s French Open started, I was sitting with my dad while watching the tribute to Nadal. It wasn’t planned. We had missed the tribute the previous night as we were too busy watching cricket- so I played the recording while having breakfast.

Suddenly there we were, quiet in front of the screen, two generations bound by the same awe- just the way the journey had started. Nadal stood there on the court he had made his own, the clay still red beneath his shoes, and I swear it felt like time paused out of respect.

What got me most wasn’t just the ovation, or the montage of his triumphs, but who showed up.

Federer. Djokovic. Murray.

Rivals, yes. But also brothers in arms who had battled across continents, through decades, each making the other better, sharper, more human. There’s a kind of friendship that only forms through that kind of competition. One forged not in practice sessions, but in five-set wars under floodlights, when you’ve given everything and the only person who truly understands is the one on the other side of the net.

Rafa didn’t just win titles. He built something deeper: respect, legacy, an emotional shorthand for perseverance. And now, his name is etched- literally- into history. A cast of his footprint will forever remain at Roland Garros, pressed into the clay like a relic, a reminder that greatness once passed through here, barefoot in spirit, bull-hearted in soul.

That print isn’t just for the museum. It’s for the kid watching from the stands, for the father and son watching from a living room on their old television set, for anyone who’s ever tried, failed, and tried again. Because Nadal’s real triumph wasn’t just in winning. It was in never stopping.

I think back to that 2008 final sometimes- not just the match, but the moment. Sitting beside my dad, not fully understanding the rules, not knowing what a deuce was or why the score jumped from 30 to 40, but feeling every second of it like it mattered. I didn’t need to understand it then to fall in love with it. Maybe I still don’t. And maybe that’s the point. Tennis, in all its mystery and madness, doesn’t ask for perfect understanding.

It just asks you to feel. To watch, to shout, to wince, to believe, to applaud. Over the years, I’ve learned the rules, the rituals, the histories. But that raw, ridiculous, beautiful feeling- that first five-hour spell of magic- I’m still chasing it, every time the ball is tossed into the air.

That’s game, set, and match. See you in the new one!

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