The origins of the tennis term ‘love’ explained as the US Open draws to a close with another meeting between the world’s top two players, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz
09:50, 07 Sep 2025Updated 10:20, 07 Sep 2025
The term ‘love’ has left some tennis fans confused(Image: Elsa/Getty Images)
As a thrilling US Open draws to a close, more casual tennis fans may be wondering about the sport’s quirky terminology and scoring system. You don’t need to be a tennis geek to know of its terms and rules, but you may not know why.
In particular, the phrase ‘love’, which applies to a player who hasn’t scored a point in a game or a game in a set, has left many scratching their head. The origins of love as a score rest in the figure zero’s resemblance to an egg.
In sport, it’s common to refer to a nil or nought score as a ‘duck’ or goose egg. For instance, the term duck applies to a batter in cricket who gets out without scoring a run. Also, the French word for egg is l’oeuf, the pronunciation of which is close to the English ‘love’.
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Another theory relates to the Dutch and Flemish word ‘lof’, which means honour. In other words, the player who hasn’t scored is still playing for honour.
On a similar theme, a 6-0 scoreline in a set is often referred to as a ‘bagel’ or a ‘doughnut’ due to a snack’s likeness to a zero. Tennis’s unique language is unlikely to have been on the minds of this weekend’s US Open finalists at Flushing Meadows.
The women’s final was won by Aryna Sabalenka, the defending champion, who defeated Wimbledon runner-up Amanda Anisimova 6-3 7-6 (3). Sabalenka is the first woman since Serena Williams won three successive US Open titles between 2012 and 2014 to successfully defend it.
Aryna Sabalenka after winning a second successive US Open crown(Image: ISI Photos via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, she has increased her tally of Grand Slams to four, having now added two New York triumphs to her pair of Australian Open trophies.
In the men’s final, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner will do battle again for supremacy within their historic rivalry. Never before in the open era have two men played each other in three grand slam finals in one season, but such is their dominance that it never really felt in question.
Since Sinner and Alcaraz played here in a dazzling quarter-final in 2022 that resulted in the US Open’s latest ever finish, they have been on a collision course.
Carlos Alcaraz saw off Novak Djokovic to book another final meeting with Jannik Sinner (Image: Al Bello/Getty Images)
And, after an even more remarkable clash at the French Open that somehow went the way of Alcaraz, Sinner gained revenge at Wimbledon to end a run of defeats against the Spaniard.
Now it is all on the line in New York, with the winner not just taking the lead in slam finals between them but also ending the week as world number one. Sinner said: “I love these challenges.
“I love to put myself in these positions. He’s someone who pushed me to the limit, which is great, because then you have the best feedback you can have as a player.”
Alcaraz, who defeated Novak Djokovic in the semis, said: “Probably this is the best level or the best feeling that I have so far in a tennis tournament or in a year. So I will try to continue like that.”