“You’ve been watching tennis on YouTube for a week,” Talia said, curled into the corner of the sofa with a glass of red wine. “You told me you understood it.”
“I watched a twenty-minute video called ‘Tennis Explained for Beginners’ and I understood approximately none of it. The scoring system was invented by a lunatic.” Liam turned to Blake and Andre, his green eyes wide and earnest. “Teach us. Properly. From the beginning.”
Blake looked at Andre. Andre looked at Blake. A silent communication passed between them — the kind that came from more than three years of shared life — and they both smiled.
“Fine,” Blake said, standing up. “But we’re going to need more wine.”
“And a visual aid,” Andre added, disappearing into the bedroom. He returned a moment later with one of Blake’s old rackets and a tennis ball.
“Right,” Blake said, settling into the armchair with the authority of a man who had given a thousand press conferences. “The basics. A tennis match is divided into sets. You need to win a certain number of sets to win the match. At Grand Slams — which is what Wimbledon is — men play best of five sets.”
“Five?” Liam said, horrified. “That could take hours.”
“It can take five hours,” Andre said. “Sometimes more.”
“Good God. And people just… sit there? For five hours?”
“They sit there,” Blake confirmed. “In the sun. Without alcohol.”
“Barbaric,” Liam muttered, refilling his glass.
“Each set,” Blake continued, “is made up of games. You need to win six games to win a set, but you have to win by two. So if it gets to six-all, you play a tiebreaker.”
“What’s a tiebreaker?”
“A special game where the first person to seven points wins. But again, you have to win by two.”
“Why is everything ‘by two’?” Talia asked, frowning. “What’s wrong with winning by one?”
“Nothing is wrong with winning by one,” Andre said. “Tennis simply does not allow it. Tennis demands that you prove yourself beyond doubt.”
“That’s very French of it,” Liam observed.
“It is English, actually. The rules were invented here.”
“Were they? Huh.” Liam took a large sip of wine. “Alright. Sets, games, tiebreakers. Got it. Now explain the scoring, because that’s where I completely lost the plot.”
Blake held up the tennis ball. “Within each game, the points go: love, fifteen, thirty, forty, game.”
There was a silence.
“Love?” Talia repeated.
“Zero. Love means zero.”
“Why?”
“No one knows,” Andre said. “There are theories. The most popular is that it comes from the French wordl’oeuf— the egg. Because an egg looks like a zero.”
“That’s absurd,” Liam said. “I love it. Continue.”
“Fifteen, thirty, forty,” Blake said. “If both players reach forty, it’s called deuce.”
“Like the card game?”
“No. Like the French worddeux— two. Because you need two more points to win.”
“Everything in this sport is French,” Talia said, looking at Andre. “Did your people invent this?”
