In June 2010, American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut played out a first round tennis match at Wimbledon that lasted for three days and ended with a score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68. The third and fourth sets were determined on tie-breakers and the final set alone (without a tie-breaker) ran for more than eight hours with 138 games played.
Imagine the duration of the match if the concept of the tie-breaker game was not implemented! Jimmy Van Halen, is credited to have invented the tie-breaker system in 1965 in order to cut down the duration of tennis games and Wimbledon implemented it in 1971. Today, all grand slams and major tournaments implement the tie-breaker game. However, there are a few exceptions. For instance, the Wimbledon, Australian Open and the French Open do not have the tie-breaker game for the final set. Only the U.S. Open allows for the final set of the match to be decided by a tie-break.
How does it work?
Tennis is a serve-dominated game where scoring on an opponent’s serve apart from holding one’s serve makes all the difference. A tie-breaker game is played when a set is tied on a score of 6 games each. The scoring for the tie-breaker, unlike a normal game, starts with 1,2,3 and so on. A player has to score at least seven points while also leading the opponent by two points to win a tie-breaker. That is, a tie-breaker score can read 7-0, 7-1, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4, 7-5, 8-6, 9-7 and so on.
How is it played?
Normally, the player whose turn it is to serve after the twelfth game in the set (6-6) serves the first point in the tie-break. He serves from the deuce court or the right hand side of the court.
After the first point, the opponent gets to serve the next two points and the serves are alternated for every two points hence. The second point served by the opponent is from the advantage court (or the left-side) and the third point is from the deuce court (right side). When the serve returns to the player, he serves from the advantage court now.
Also, after every six points the players change sides and continue the game. Players also change sides when the tie-breaker game is won as the set that concluded consists of 13 games (7-6). This is because in tennis, players change sides for every odd number of games i.e., 1,3,5 and so on. If a set ends with a score of say, 6-4 (10 games), players do not change sides, while they will if the score reads 6-1, 6-3 or 7-6 (7, 9 and 11 games).
