Love Game
TenniSite Museum
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Museum Home About Equipment Ad in Funnee Kid's Page Art History
The game of love, and tennis... "One of the pleasures of the game" - 1907 by Charles Scribner's & Sons.
---------- It takes two to play...tennis. But is love a game? In tennis 'a love game' means one player didn't score even once in the loss of the game. ----- There is motherly love...(Andre Agassi with Mom)
There is puppy love....(sorry)
There is Saturday evening love...(sorry)
The Saturday Evening Post magazine began in 1821, this cover is from 1930. ---------- Of course all of us who play the game know we really play for the "love of the game", and we're not talking about a love score. Or perhaps play for the love of the game is indicative of playing for nothing, which would be a relation to the score. -----
This Kodak ad from 1920 depicts two tennis lovers posing for a picture on the courts. ----- This 1908 card is entitled "A Love Game"
----- Racquet for two. Art by F. Earl Christy.
----- From 1918: A Love Score
No one today really knows the origin of the score "love", but everyone knows what it means in tennis. | "Love", as a tennis score, is thought by some historians to come from the French l'oeuf, "egg", representing zero. Read on for some other potential explanations of a "love score". Tennis and life mix well. Check out the Tennis PC Love Story . In life, Love makes the world go 'round. In life, the TenniSite loves tennis too... Then there is -
this Life Magazineis from 1925. -----
"Love - A Score of Zero" From one of a series of comedic drinking glass art collections - see the museum's Glass Tennis page ----- Red roses...hold on to your racquet.
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----- Did you know you should roll your tongue around in your mouth 7 times before you tell someone you love them. We didn't either but that is what this humorous card says, in French:
"As Mom always says: Before you say that you love, turn your tongue seven times in his mouth...forgiveness. Sir, I meant in your mouth." ----- Best Chums (F. Earl Christy art)
----- Some cite the English phrase 'neither for love nor for money', meaning nothing, as a possible source for the tennis scoring term for 0. ----- While love games sometimes pit man against woman, tennis never never does (except in mixed doubles)
This 1935 Liberty magazine features an article by tennis great Helen Hull Jacobs (4 time US National singles champion in the 1930s) titled "Man Against Woman In Tennis" ----- |
