Tennis Competition Rules

Although the rules of tennis competition can vary with each tournament that you play in, typically most clubs follow the standard guidelines established by the Women's Tennis Association, Association of Tennis Players, and the four major professional slams (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open.) Keep in mind that, particularly when dealing with amateur and intermediate level competitions, the guidelines used by the pros are almost never used exactly.

  1. Draws and Seeds

    • Assigned draws and seeds help keep the popular players from facing off early on in the draw

      Most competition draws in the professional league circuit have it so the top players in the world do not face one another until the later part of the draw, during the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. This is typically done by assigning unseeded, unranked players to play against the top ten to twenty seeded players in the world in the first three to four rounds of the tournament. By doing this, tournament directors can make sure that popular, big ticket matches don't occur early on in the tournament.

    Set Scoring

    • Wimbledon's longest match ever happened in 2010, ending with a 70-68 final set, at 11 hours and 5 minutes long.

      Particularly at the professional level, many competitions have unique forms of set scoring that are often specific to each competition. Typically, sets are played until one player wins six games, and is at least two games ahead of his or her opponent. If a set reaches 6-6, then a tie breaker is played to decide who the winner of the set is. However, at some tournaments (including Wimbledon and the Australian Open,) there is no tie break, and the set is played until one player is ahead of his or her opponent by two games.

    Linesmen and Challenges

    • Most professional tournaments employ computer operated cameras that are used to help linesmen make close calls when they are unsure if a ball is in or out. Players can use these computers to challenge a linesmen's call, but are typically limited to three to five challenges a match (no challenges are deducted if the player is correct in his or her challenge). These computers, however, are only available at well funded tournaments like Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, and thus often times amateur competitions do not employ these challenge rules.

    Rest Periods and Injury Time Outs

    • To help prevent matches from dragging on longer than necessary, rest periods and time outs are strictly monitored by referees and linesmen. Particularly at the professional level, rest periods are only provided between set changes and odd numbered games, and time outs are only given when a player needs to call a trainer for an injury. Monitoring these rest periods and time outs is a test of endurance for both players in the match.

    Coaching

    • Coaching a player through a match is typically not done in professional tennis competitions

      In most professional competitions, coaching a player during a match is strictly forbidden, and is typically penalized by deducting points from a player if he or she is caught doing so. Although there are professional leagues as well as amateur tournaments that do allow coaching, learning to perform independently is considered one of the primary mental challenges of playing tennis.