Is there any reason for the scoring system in tennis?
The origins of the fifteen, thirty, and forty scores are believed to be medieval French. It is possible that a clock face was used on court, with a quarter move of the hand to indicate a score of fifteen, thirty, and forty-five. When the hand moved to sixty, the game was over. However, it was realized that the game could then be won by luck, and so the idea of “”deuce”” was introduced. In order to make the score still within the “”sixty”” ticks on the clock face, the forty-five was changed to forty. Therefore, if both players have forty, the first player to score receives ten and that moves the clock to fifty. If the player scores a second time before the opponent is able to score, they are awarded another ten and the clock moves to sixty. The sixty signifies the end of the game. However, if a player fails to score twice in a row, then the clock would move back to forty to establish another “”deuce”” Another theory is that the scoring nomenclature came from the French game jeu de paume