When a decisive game comes up in the sports world, there a lot of questions about what makes a winner in this type of game. In several sports they have a series of matches or special events to untie the game upon until a winner is awarded the game.
For tennis, the tiebreak is used to literally break the tie. Coincidentally, it was invented by the American official James Van Alen and unveiled in 1965 as an experiment at the pro tournament he sponsored at Newport Casino, Rhode Island. It was a two-system tie break proposed; best-five-of-nine-points tiebreaker and best-seven-of-12-points tiebreaker
Therefore, since it was introduced to the pro-level tennis, the tie break has suffered many changes. The Wimbledon Championships' tournament introduced the tie-break rule in 1972 as a 12-point tiebreaker. However, nowadays this system has changed to a 10-point tiebreaker. Check out how the system works today.
Why is the match-decider played up to 10 points?
According to the ITF Ruling system, "Points are counted using ordinary numbering. The set is won by the player who has scored at least seven points in the tiebreak and at least two points more than their opponent. For example, if the score is six points to five and the player with six points wins the next point, they win the tiebreak (seven points to five). As well as the set (seven games to six). If the player with five points wins the point instead (for a score of six all), the tiebreak continues and cannot be won on the next point (7–6 or 6–7), since no player will be two points ahead."
However, since March 2022, the ATP and the WTA both decided to modify this rule.Then, the ATP, WTA and ITF announced that final-set tiebreaks in all Grand Slams will have a 10-point tie break when the set reaches six games all. Therefore, the tie-break will be played up to 18 points if necessary, but only 10 points are needed to win the tie break.
