This comes from French and is a shortened form of “deux du jeu”, which means “two to win”, referring to how you need two straight points to win a game from 40-40. However, when players are level at 40-40, it is called deuce. When players are level on 15 or 30 the score is announced as “15 all” or “30 all”. This is similar to how a “duck” (from “duck’s egg”) in cricket indicates a score of zero. The use of “love” for zero is believed to derive from the phrase “playing for love”, meaning “without stakes being wagered, for nothing”.Īnother theory is that it derives from the French word for “the egg” ( l’œuf) because an egg looks like the number zero. However, there were some clocks at French and English cathedrals that did have minute dials and tolled every 15 minutes, so it cannot be completely ruled out.
