Did you know that David Attenborough is the reason tennis balls are bright yellow?

Yup – the hue used to be decided by the court (dark for a light court, and vice versa, for visibility).

But when the then-controller of BBC 2 noticed these didn’t stand out on-screen, he asked them to change the spheres to a brighter colour, officially known as optic yellow.

To me, though, that only answers one of tennis’ many mysteries. For instance, up until recently, I still had no idea why “love” was used to mean a score of zero.

Why do we call a score of zero “love” in tennis?

There are plenty of theories, but one seems more likely than the others.

The BBC suggested the term came from the French word for “egg” (l’oeuf, which is pronounced almost like “love” to English speakers), as the fo

See Full Page