How having zero points in tennis — or 'love' — came to sound so sweet

The scoreboard shows the results of the women's singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP hide caption

Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. "Love" — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.

As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport , maybe you've been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport's scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, "love" became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR's Word of the Week , we're exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.

It's hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as "jeu de paume," a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.

But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.

"By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely," Flink said.

The use of "love" goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old "nothing," or "nil," he said.

Why love in the first place, though? Historians don't really know for sure, but there are a few theories.