Game

A unit of play in which one player serves until a winner is determined, as follows: Four points won by a player wins him a game unless, before the fourth point is won, his opponent has tied him at three points each (deuce). Now one player or the other must win two points in a row before the game can be won.  Otherwise the score reverts to deuce and the attempt to win two points in a row continues until it finally happens. That may be almost immediately, or it may take what seems like forever at the time. (In the 1987 French Open, for example, in a game between Ivan Lendl and Sweden's Joakim Nystrom, the score went back and forth from deuce to advantage to deuce for just under half an hour before the issue was settled). Six games wins a set, except when it doesn't (see “set” and “tie breaker”).