Love is nothing. Got it?

Today was Nathan and Caleb's first tennis match of the summer. Their coach was out of town and asked me to cover for him, coordinate the match-ups with the opposing coach, etc. I ended up answering a lot of questions about the game itself. I really thought my knowledge of tennis was just a basic general knowledge, but I was the expert on the court yesterday. That is a SAD state of affairs, LOL!

I explained that the boys should each play one pro set, to 8 games instead of 6. First one to win 8 games wins the match, and they have to win by 2 games. Any questions? One mom asked, "So do they play a total of 8 matches, or do they have to WIN by 8 matches?" Errrr. . . . still not sure how to answer that. I started over and explained it more carefully until I was pretty sure she got it.

Nathan asked, "So my match could potentially go to 11-9?" I said, "It could potentially go to 25-23. Tell you what, we'll call it when it gets dark." (This was at 9 a.m.)

Another mom, during her son's match: "He keeps walking back and forth before he serves. Is he supposed to do that?" So I explained deuce court/advantage court and when to serve to each. She sighed and said, "Tennis is SO complicated."

I got all kinds of questions about first/second serves, switching sides, calling the score before serving, what the different lines on the court mean, not to mention how scoring works.

Before his match, Nathan asked, "Are we doing regular scoring with deuce or no-ad?" I said regular scoring. One of the moms said, "I have no idea what that means." I said, "That's okay, your son does. He can get started and then I'll explain it to you." And as I started the explanation, I realized that it DOES sound complicated. First to 4 points by 2 wins the game. Love, 15, 30, 40, deuce, advantage, game. Crazy scoring system.

But she was clear on one thing: "I know love is nothing." Doesn't that just about sum it up? LOL!