A novice tennis fan wouldn’t be blamed for being confused about who’s winning a match—an understanding of the language of tennis scoring is required to appreciate the game! At the beginning of the set, when both sides have no score, the game is love-love because in tennis, love means having a score of zero or nil.

The term has been used as such since the late 1800s. It’s not perfectly clear how this usage of love came to be, but the most accepted theory is that those with zero points were still playing for the “love of the game” despite their losing score.

My love of tennis goes back decades, growing up in the burb of Ojai, then population of 5000, summer recreation consisted of horseback riding, beach days or tennis. The Ojai Tennis Tournament, often shortened to The Ojai, is an annual tennis tournament that traces its beginnings to 1887, when Sherman Day Thacher arrived in the Ojai Valley to pursue citrus farming. With the later arrival of his brother William Thacher, a collegiate tennis champion at Yale, the ranch became home to the valley’s first tennis court in 1892 and hosted Ojai’s first tennis tournament the following year. William Thacher established the Ojai Valley Tennis Club in 1895.

Notable participants in the Ojai Tennis Tournament include Charlie Pasarell, Bill Tilden, Tony Trabert, Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, Tracy Austin, Lindsay Davenport, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, and the Bryan twins.

Our small Catholic school allowed students to miss class on Thursday & Friday if you volunteered to squeeze and serve local orange juice to the Tournament guests. You might imagine many of us raised our hands to volunteer. I’ve played with passion for years, and then might not pick up a racket for a few years, I love it, but life or bicycling or at one point, sculling on the bay sometimes gets in the way. Despite my knee replacement, I’m playing twice a week, which renders me slightly crippled for a day, but I love the game!

My recent visit to the Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos inspired me to take my racket and engage with the hotel tennis pro’s, a truly outstanding experience! Slightly concerned with virus variants if I left property and mingled in cities, my morning tennis lessons were the perfect solution to staying on property! My first morning, in 70-degree heat, I met with Jonathan who owns a local tennis firm. He’s gathered a stable of young professionals who rotate around the various clubs and hotels. AND now, we can offer exclusive private lessons at Villas anywhere in the world with his professionals. We’ve found with some of our private Villa rentals, a superb pro may not reside in the area, having Jonathan and his team available to us, is, to use a tennis term, an advantage. His firm is a premier tennis company focused on incredible service, high quality instruction and genuine interaction. With a combined 20 years experience in top hotel properties around the world such as Rosewood, Auberge, Four Seasons, One and Only and Raffles, they provide Top 10 Service. If you stay at one of our preferred hotels, we will advise our pro preferences and request exclusive service. Outside of these hotels we can provide a stay with you for on property instruction.

My second day of instruction, Bruno informed me that Jon suffered an injury after playing with me – yes, I was that powerful! No, it happened following my lesson, but it was beneficial, as I also met Fernando, another player on Jon’s tennis team. Bruno is a hard hitter from Argentina with a fast patter as well! As the sparring partner of Grand Slam Champion and former world number one, Guillermo Vilas, he traveled performing in exhibitions, giving workshops and tennis events.  As a high-performance trainer Bruno traveled to Wimbledon and Roland Garros as the head coach of a player in 2016.  

Each coach teaches and plays at tour level with hard drills and fun games, I absolutely adored my tennis time and look forward to returning to the courts at the Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos.

When we reserve your private Villa anywhere in the world, we can contract with Jon and his team to hang with your family and bring you to tournament level!

Tennis might have ended up with a different name altogether. Major Walter Wingfield, who laid down the rules for modern tennis, had another name for tennis. He called it sphairistike, based on the Greek phrase “skill in playing at ball.” The word tennis most likely comes from the French word tenetz — meaning “hold!” 

Gracias, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos. – Rules of the Game: Love-Love