"Out!", "In!", "Advantage Player One!".

If you've ever heard someone shouting those sayings, perhaps you have passed near to a tennis court: those are some of the things a tennis umpire enjoys shouting!

Of all the sports in the world, tennis has one of the strangest scoring mechanisms. Indeed, it is so strange, I struggle to even summarise it!

Each player begins with no points.
15 points are awarded for every successful tennis goal, until a player has 30 points - at this point, only 10 points are awarded for a goal.
If both players have 40 points, the game can only be won by scoring two consecutive goals!

But the scoring mechanism isn't the only thing that's odd about tennis: the pitch is divided in half, with a giant net separating the players! WOW!

The player with the fastest serve traditionally has an advantage in the game of tennis - because a fast serve is difficult for the other player to defend against.

The WOW for the fastest tennis serve is held by American Andy Roddick.
He can hit a tennis ball so that it reaches a speed of 242 mph - faster than a dog can blink!