US Open: Ever wonder where all those tennis terms originated from? We do, too.

If you have been walking around the grounds of the National Tennis Center in Flushing during the first week of the U.S. Open, you’ve no doubt heard some different languages being spoken at one of New York’s truly great international events.

But there is no more unique language than the language of tennis.

It’s the language of love (as in 40-love). It’s the language of games, sets and matches (and don’t dare mix them up). It’s the language of lets and advantages and deuces, of aces and faults and so many other terms that no other sport can claim.

So here's a look at how some of these terms came to be.

Or, to put it another way: “Tennis, anyone?”

(Which, by the way, nobody apparently ever really said.)

The origin of the phrase “tennis, anyone?” is so vital that William Safire, who later penned the “On Language” column for the New York Times, investigated a rumor that actor Humphrey Bogart had first uttered it in a play.

This was in 1951. Bogart denied ever saying the phrase.

Three years earlier, in a different interview, Bogart said he had.

Regardless, the phrase at its inception was clearly intended to depict tennis as a pastime of the well-to-do in society, something that foppish rich folks would ask because they didn’t have to go to work. And they didn't even have the "Honey Deuce" back then.

How about perhaps the best-known and least understood term from tennis’ unique scoring system? Love may be all you need, but if it’s all you have in a tennis match you have lost.

Love means zero. As in zero points.

In the book “Tennis: Origins and Mysteries,” author and Hall of Fame player Malcolm D. Whitman devotes an entire chapter to “The Origin of ‘Love’ in Scoring.”

It opens: “The players of today who call the scores so glibly may be surprised to know that they speak a language which has been a puzzle for centuries . . . The use of the word ‘love’ is the great mystery.”

The book was written in 1932.

Whitman goes through a bunch of suspects as to the use of love to mean zero: the Scotch word “luff,” which means “nothing.” The French word “l’oeuf,” which means “egg” and sounds like “love.” Plus, a duck egg is shaped like a zero, the theory goes.

That theory was recently debunked, though, in a Reader’s Digest article quoting language expert Martha Barnette, who said: “We just don’t have any evidence that love comes from the French word for egg.”

Both Whitman in 1932 and Barnette in 2026 suggested love as zero may have come from the notion of playing for the love of the game.

“It is quite usual to say, ‘Let’s play for love,’ when we mean to play for nothing,” Whitman wrote. “And in view of the antiquity of the expression it would seem most natural for the English to have used the word to indicate no score when they first began to play the game.”

But what about the numbers that appear next to “love” in tennis scoring? One point is 15, two is 30, three is 40. Whitman tackles that next in a chapter entitled, “The Mystery of ‘Fifteen’ in Scoring.”

Give the man credit: He loved his mysteries.

After going back as far as 1435 for a reference to “fifteen” in tennis scoring, and spending 19 pages on various theories, Whitman gives up and states, “We still lack absolute proof.”

Thanks, pal.

The most common theory is that tennis scoring mimicked the face of a clock (15, 30 and 45, which was later changed to 40). 

But clocks with faces were invented after tennis. So the mystery remains just that today.

“Ace” for a serve that is not returned was apparently coined in the 1800s and refers to the ace as the No. 1 in a deck of cards.

Tennis writer Allison Danzig is “often credited with coining the term,” his official International Tennis Hall of Fame bio states, but it seems more likely he popularized it rather than first came up with it.

It’s no one’s fault — a lot of years have passed.

Fault! Right. The use of that word to describe an unsuccessful serve is commonly traced to the French word “faute,” which means a failure, flaw or error.

If you do find fault, it’s OK to let it be.

In tennis, a “let” is basically a do-over — a point that doesn’t count, usually due to a serve hitting the top of the net and continuing to the other player’s side. It is often traced to the Olde English word “lettian,” which means to hinder or obstruct.

Deuce comes from “deux,” which means two in French. It refers to a score of 40-40, and a player must win two points in a row to end the game.

If you score one point, you gain an “advantage,” as in “advantage, Agassi.” The score does not go to 55-40.

The term is apparently self-explanatory.

“Advantage explains itself,” Whitman sniffs.

No mystery there. Love it!