Court derives from the Old French cort meaning “king’s court” or “princely court”. The meaning of the older, Latin root (cohors meaning “enclosed yard”) started to be used in English at a later date. As tennis was originally played surrounded by buildings and in yards, court came to be used to mean the space where tennis was played.

In France, à un was once called when a player reached 40 points, meaning that he was one point away from winning the game. If his opponent then joined him on 40 points, à deux would be called, since now both players needed to win two points to win the game. À un is no longer heard and à deux has become deuce. Perhaps surprisingly, égalité is the term you will hear instead of deuce at Roland Garros for lawn tennis. 

“tenes” is first mentioned in Donato Velluti’s late 1360s Cronica di Firenze, when he describes a group of French knights introducing the game to Florence in 1325.  

The first known mention in English dates to c. 1400 when John Gower’s In Praise of Peace talks of “tenetz”.  

The origins of the word “tennis” has often been debated. The best evidence points towards variant spellings of tennis (tenetz, tenys, tenes, etc.) being adaptations of the French tenez. This seems to have been called out before each rally as a warning (tenez means “hold” or “pay attention”). It is suggested that visitors to France would have related this game which required a call of “tenez” simply as “tennis”. 

The use of the term love for zero is undeniably confusing. The idea that it comes from French because zero was commonly known in France as “l’oeuf” (the egg) is little more than a theory.  

The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the term may have come from the phrase “for love”, and when you play “for the love of the game”, you are in fact playing for nothing. Indeed, the only thing keeping a scoreless player on the court is the love of the game and while love isn’t all you need, sometimes it might be all you’ve got.  

The scoring system of “15, 30, 40, game” was being used at least by the 16^th century. 60 was and remains the system used for counting seconds and minutes, and there are also 60 minutes in each degree of longitude and latitude. Whether or not an actual clock face provided the inspiration, or indeed was used to help keep score, does not matter much. It is not too great a leap of the imagination to divide into quarters from 60. The score “45” was then simplified to “40” for brevity’s sake. 

Chase 

As with so many tennis terms, chase comes from the French chasser, “to hunt” or “to chase”. The chase has been a feature of tennis since at least c. 1400 when John Gower’s In Praise of Peace reads “Of the Tenetz to winne or lese a chace”. 

When tennis was originally played in outdoor spaces, a chase was marked from where the ball came to stop, not from the second bounce. It seems that players were allowed to slow the ball down, however, and did not have to watch the ball roll on and on. 

The phrase “cut to the chase” is often thought to be derived from tennis. Sadly it seems more likely that it comes from early 20^th century Hollywood when a director demanded his film “cut to the chase” scene, whether in cars or on foot we do not know. More likely to be a tennis expression is “from pillar to post” which comes from the rapid movement of the ball from side to side.