Names for the number 0 in English a formal reading of a team's scoresheet. There is no definitive origin for the tennis score name for 0, "love". It firstly occurred in English, is of comparatively recent origin, and is not used in other languages. The most commonly believed hypothesis is that it is derived from English speakers mis-hearing the French "l'œuf", "the egg", which was the name for a score of zero used in French, because the symbol for a zero used on the scoreboard was an elliptical zero symbol, which visually resembled an egg. There is tangential support for this in the use of "duck" as
History of tennis History of tennis The game that most people call 'tennis' is the direct descendant of what is now known as real tennis or royal tennis (which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules). Most rules of the game commonly known as tennis derive from it. It is reasonable to see both sports as variations of the same game. The idea that tennis originated in the monastic cloisters in northern France in the 12th century has been largely discredited, but it is correct that in the first few centuries in which it was played, the