Cultured Learning

A love match

Britain is going “tennis mad” at the moment, and everyone is talking about Wimbledon, strawberries, Pimms, and of course, a certain young Scottish man called Andy Murray.  Why?  It’s because it’s tennis season.

Tennis court  — The place where the game is played.

Net — The dividing line in the middle of the court.  The aim of the game is to hit the ball across the net to the other side.  If the other player(s) cannot hit it back to you, you win a point.

Racket racket / racquet (both spellings are correct)  — The thing used to hit the ball.

Tennis ball — the ball

Ball boys / girls  — The teenagers who help the players by picking up the fallen balls

Lines man /woman — The people who judge / decide whether you played a point correctly or not, and whether the ball is ‘in’ (ok) or ‘out’ (not ok, and you lose the point)

Umpire  — The man or woman who sits on the high chair and is the overall judge

Groundsmen — The people who look after the court (they cover it in the rain, mow the grass etc)

Commentator – The people who discuss the game on the radio or on television

The player(s) — The people playing the match

Singles — A match between two people

Doubles — A match between four people (two on each side)

Mixed doubles — A match between four people (one man and one woman on each side)

Sets — Each match is made up of three sets (for women) and in Wimbledon, five sets (for men)

Games – Each set is made up of games.  The first player to get 6 games is the winner of that set, but they have to get two more than their opponent.  So, if they have 6 games, and the opponenet has 4, they win.  Or if they have 7, and the opponent has 5, they win.

Tie-break — If both players win 6 games each in a set, then they have to play a special tie break game

Points — Each game is made up of 5 points which are marked very strangely!

Hawkeye – Is the special computer that can analysis wheter a point is “in” or “out”.