With the first day of the 2023 tennis championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, Wimbledon, London on July 2nd, the tournament is now well underway. The Lawn means the matches are played on grass so this tournament is the Grand Slam featured one on grass as historically was the U.S. Open but that, as is the Australian championships, is now a hard court venue. The French championship is played on clay. Now the grass courts are green and in wonderful condition but by the day of the finals the wear caused by the points, games, sets, matches played will leave bare areas especially by where the serve starts play.

So, if you are not familiar with the game despite the nice court there on Upper Main Street, this may act as a primer for you so you may better enjoy watching what some people can do with a racquet and fast moving balls. The first point played is called by the chair umpire “fifteen” and if the other player wins the next point the score is “fifteen all”. “Thirty” and “thirty all” or “thirty fifteen, thirty love (love means nothing or zero in tennis) and then forty before “game”. It won’t take long for you to figure all that out. When the sum of the games played adds up to an odd number, the players will change ends of the court and the commercials will give you a break.

Games accumulate with the first player reaching 6 by a margin of 2, so 6-4 for example, that player has won a set. In the Grand Slam tournaments such as this, the men’s matches are best-of-five and the women’s best-of-three sets. Some years ago, (2010) before the tie break was adopted, one match at Wimbledon was played in 11 hours over three days with the winning fifth set score of 70-68. Now the tiebreak is played if both players or doubles teams reach 6-6, with the winning score posted as 7-6.

The players are ranked in the top 200 with qualifying tournaments gaining them entrees. The main singles draws have 128 players battling it out so the champion has managed to win 7 straight matches to hoist the trophy and get the check for 2.4 million dollars. Favored to win are, for the women, Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka, and for the men, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. Most fun to watch can be American Coco Gauff and Australian Nick Kyrgios. Coco, seeded #7, was unfortunately knocked out in the first round.

If you need a translation for any of the above, email Mary Johnsen at johnsenmary2240@comcast.net. She is the one who hit a few balls on Upper Main for 16 years, and in the U.S. Open plus was named by the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2003- Volunteer Coach of the Year- Tennis for the program there in Downieville. No guarantees but she also was a chair umpire so maybe she’ll have a good chance for an accurate response. In the meantime, enjoy the matches. The play is amazing! Then try it!