What is love? Answering the frequently asked tennis questions at the Cincinnati Open

Posted by Admin August 18, 2024 Tennis

Picture this: you venture to Great American Ball Park this weekend to watch the Cincinnati Reds battle the Kansas City Royals.

You grab a seat in the first-base shade and settle in when all of a sudden Reds’ superstar Elly De La Cruz rips a screaming foul ball near your section. The ball kicks around a few times, rolls to a stop at your feet and you pick it up. What do you do with it?

Unless you’re making a child’s day by giving them the souvenir, you’re probably telling your friends about it, taking a picture with it, keeping it at home and hoping De La Cruz heads to Cooperstown one day to say you snagged a ball hit by a Hall-of Famer.

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This week at the Cincinnati Open, if you track down a mishit from five-time Grand Slam champion and World No. 1 Iga Swiatek at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, you’ll have to hope someone believes you when you tell the tale. Ball boys will waive a hand in your direction, asking for you to return it.

It’s one of the many nuances of tennis that makes the game unique. But why is that? Here are your answers.

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Why can’t fans keep tennis balls at the Cincinnati Open?

Six new tennis balls are issued at the start of a match. The players warm up, then, after the seventh game, six new ones are put in play. Every ninth game after that, a new half-dozen batch gets used.

The Wilson Regular Duty tennis balls begin to fluff up when they’re in play. By returning all balls to the court, the tournament is able to keep using tennis balls with similar wear and tear throughout the match.

Tennis balls will fly faster when they’re brand new, which is why you’ll see some players switch to a new racket with fresh strings to get the most pop on their hits.

Why do players apologize after winning a point with a shot off the net?

Even the fiercest competitors can show remorse in the heat of battle when it comes to tennis.

You’ll notice during a volley that when a player’s return hits the net and lands on the other side for a point, he or she will religiously offer an apologetic waive to their opponent. It’s all part of tennis etiquette and the modern-day manners of the game.

Apologizing for the point is a way to acknowledge that you didn’t intend to hit an unreturnable shot that harmlessly drops off the other side of the net, and that the net helped you win the point. You got lucky, but it wasn’t intentional.

Why is zero called love?

Love is used as zero for scoring tennis. There’s not a clear-cut reason why, though there are theories. The British Broadcasting Corporation states that ‘love’ is used as a score because “in the figures zero’s resemblance to an egg. In sport, it’s common to refer to a nil or nought score as a duck or goose egg, and the French word for egg is l’oeuf − the pronunciation of which isn’t too far removed from the English ‘love.'”

Another theory is that in Dutch or Flemish, “the word ‘lof’ means honor,” so even if a player has zero points, they’re basically playing for the love of the game.

The good folks at Merriam-Webster threw out the egg theory” and suggests the “playing for love” origin is the best bet.

Overall, tennis has been around for hundreds of years and there’s no black and white explanation. You gotta love that.

Why are there different nets for singles and doubles matches?

Stick around the P&G Grandstands this week and you’ll see the swapping of nets in between a singles and doubles match.

That’s because singles tennis matches use the inner line on the court as the field limit. You’ll see 42-inch singles sticks prop the net precisely above the singles sideline on dual-match courts.

Other tennis rarities

These aren’t questions, just uncommon practices you might see for the first time in a tennis match.

Tennis might be the only sport where you warm up with your opponent prior to the match. The friendly warm-up could be used to feel out a competitor, but it’s considered a friendly practice session.

“A player should provide the opponent a warm-up of five to 10 minutes. If a player declines to warm up the opponent, the player forfeits the right to a warm-up, and the opponent may warm up with another person. Each player should try to hit shots directly to the opponent,” according to the UTSA rulebook.

Usually, a losing team walks off the field while confetti falls. Another part of tennis etiquette is for the loser of a championship match to stick around for the trophy presentation of the winner. It’s not required, but a common sign of sportsmanship.