Tennis: why seven points do not always settle a tie-break
A tie-break can end a set or replace the final one. To read the score, you first need to know which one is being played.
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Seven points, or ten? In tennis, these two thresholds belong to different formats. The tie-break counts points one by one, rather than as fifteen, thirty and forty. To know when the match ends, you also need to tell the end of a set apart from the replacement of the deciding set.
In 2018, South Africa's Kevin Anderson beat John Isner in the Wimbledon semi-final after six hours and thirty-six minutes, with the fifth set won twenty-six games to twenty-four. That result belongs to a different end-of-match rule and should not be read under the current Grand Slam rulebook. The harmonisation of match endings across the four majors was announced in 2022.
At six games all, the threshold depends on the set
In a set played with a standard tie-break, six games all triggers a seven-point tie-break. The winner must keep a two-point lead. Hypothetical example: at six points all in this tie-break, the next point is not enough. Eight points to six ends it; seven points to six does not.
Under the 2026 Grand Slam rulebook, at six games all in the final set, the tie-break is played to ten points, again with a two-point lead required. Hypothetical example: ten points to nine does not end the match; eleven points to nine does. The set has indeed been played to six games all.
A tie-break can also replace an entire set
The International Tennis Federation's rules provide for another format: when the opponents have each won a set in a best-of-three match, a ten-point match tie-break can replace the third set. A two-point lead is still required.
It then starts straight away, without six games each being played in a final set. This format depends on the rules of each event.
The right marker before the final point
The number seven or ten is therefore not enough: you have to check whether the tie-break comes after six games all or in place of a set. In Melbourne in 2019, Katie Boulter thought she had won at seven points to four before finishing at ten to six against Ekaterina Makarova. That impression did not change the threshold in place.
Before concluding that a player has just won, looking at the event's format and the set under way allows the same score to be read correctly.
Photo: Steven Pisano, Kevin Anderson at the US Open, 30 August 2013, under CC BY 2.0. Separate archive image from Wimbledon 2018; cropped, with SNA logo.
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