Since the late 1800s, tennis players have used the word "love" to represent a score of zero. To be honest, I'm not sure how love got a synonym for zero, but neither is the tennis scoring system as a whole. The points increase from love to 15, 30, and 40, which correspond to 0, 1, 2, and 3 points every game, respectively. Love games are won by one team or the other, but if the score is tied at deuce (the name of each court level except for singles), then the match will go on until one player reaches a position where they can win the game without risk of loss. Love was originally the lowest score that could be recorded on a tennis court, but over time it has been replaced by another number. Today, when two professionals play a best-of-three set match, the score gets higher as the match progresses. They start with a love game, which means that each side wins a game without losing any points. If the scores are still equal, then there will be a tiebreaker game where each side takes it in turn to serve, race to the net, hit returns, etc., until one person makes a mistake that allows them to lose the point. The match will now be played to a winner-take-all fifth game, which means that only five points are awarded per game instead of six. This reduces the likelihood of a match going on forever because there's no advantage to being the first to reach 40 points.