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This sentence is from my book. The sentence is about Serbian tennis player Bojana Jovanovski. How do you pronounce 3-6 6-4 6-1 in this context?

Unfortunately, the day finished badly for Bojana because she lost the match 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.

muru
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Antonia A
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  • I would have thought tennis scores were international: player A wins 3 games, player B wins 6 games and the first set. This is general reference question, it is not difficult to find the answer. – Mari-Lou A Jan 20 '22 at 09:56
  • This is well-explained in Wikipedia:Tennis Scoring System – Jeff Zeitlin Jan 20 '22 at 21:04
  • With commas that (intentionally?) failed to be included. 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. Then the only question should be, do you pronounce the hyphen, which is no, but only in tennis. In every other sport it's pronounced to and it's a single set of numbers that are scores because tennis is wack and also uses words that mean something about the score, or something. – Mazura Jan 21 '22 at 10:57
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    @Mazura - "In every other sport"… The biggest sport in the world, football, is pronounced the same way. Manchester beat Arsenal 4-1 [four one]. (Teams chosen at random, no affiliation ;)) – DoneWithThis. Jan 21 '22 at 11:22
  • Oh yeah. 'football'. – Mazura Jan 21 '22 at 12:03
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    @Mazura Yes, the sport built around playing a ball with your feet, – StrangerToKindness Jan 21 '22 at 14:34
  • @gonefishin'again. I think Americans would say "four to one". Mazura has got it wrong. It is not uniquely tennis that misses out the "to". The "to" is American. I can't think of any sport where we in Britain would say it any differently to the way it is said in tennis - rugby, hockey etc. (Cricket is a lot more complicated) – WS2 Nov 06 '22 at 21:11
  • @StrangerToKindness And which has won the right, through being the world's most popular sport with nothing else coming within a thousand miles of it, to call itself whatever it likes. – WS2 Nov 06 '22 at 21:13
  • Going back to the tennis I would say "She lost 6-3, 4-6, 1-6". Her opponent won "3-6, 6-4, 6-1". – WS2 Nov 06 '22 at 21:18

3 Answers3

16

Tennis officials/commentators say Three six, six four, six one (short for three games to six etc.)

gotube
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Kate Bunting
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    in what kind of sports do native speakers say three to six six to four six to one? – Antonia A Jan 20 '22 at 09:29
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    @AntoniaA 3-6 includes all the numbers in between, as in "study pages 3-10" which means from page 3 until page 10. There is no sport that uses a similar score system. – Mari-Lou A Jan 20 '22 at 09:52
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    @AntoniaA if she had lost in straight sets 6-2 6-1 some people would say she lost 2 and 1 but that is not common. There are also slang terms 6-0 is a bagel and some people call 6-1 a breadstick but I would not recommend using these yourself unless you are convinced the listener will know them. – mdewey Jan 20 '22 at 13:42
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    @Mari-LouA Actually... At least here in the US, that type of display of a score, just with spaces around the '-', is very normal in a lot of sports, and the typical reading is, indeed, ‘X to Y’. – Austin Hemmelgarn Jan 20 '22 at 18:04
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    'X to Y', though is used in settings where X > Y and context includes the winner ("The Townsville Sports Team won 6 to 3"). In tennis the order of X and Y implies the winner of the set: X > Y means the winner of the match, X < Y their opponent. – chepner Jan 20 '22 at 20:42
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    A statement like "The Cityton Ballplayers lost 3 to 6" is nonstandard at best. – chepner Jan 20 '22 at 20:43
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    When giving the score for a tennis match, the player who won the match is listed first in the set scores. So, in this example, if A won the match over B, the score "three six, six four, six one" means that player A lost the first set (winning only three games to B's six), but won the other two sets (winning six games in each, to B's four in set 2 and one in set 3). This is well-explained in Wikipedia:Tennis Scoring System – Jeff Zeitlin Jan 20 '22 at 21:03
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    @Mari-LouA I think the OP raises their question based on other languages. In German, the word "to" can be translated with "bis" like in a range, or "zu" like in sports. Sport reporters really say "Drei zu sechs, sechs zu vier, sechs zu eins". – rexkogitans Jan 21 '22 at 09:41
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    @chepner - "lost 3 to 6" is standard for this Chicagoan (in more ways than one ;). How do people in Boston call out a final score? And it's pounced ta... "Tree-ta-sics." – Mazura Jan 21 '22 at 11:02
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    Though it is not in the original question, and again is "tennis only", perhaps a comment that "0" is pronounced "love" in match scores should be added for "in general"? – Mycroft Jan 21 '22 at 16:07
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    @AntoniaA Regarding "X to Y"; the full phrase is "X things to Y" eg "Dave beat Frank 5 games to 3". IF the type of score be taken as implicit (for example the question "What's was the last game score?" was asked) then that word can be omitted - Which would give us "Dave beat Frank 5 to 3". IF the players can be taken as a given AND the order of the players is a given (eg "What was the score in the Dave, Frank game?") then the whole thing can be truncated down to "five three". – UKMonkey Jan 21 '22 at 17:19
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When you see 3-6 it normally indicates all the numbers from the lowest to the highest, as in

"Study pages 3-10"

Said as: Study pages three to ten, which means starting from page 3 and continue until page 10.

Children aged 8-12 (eight to twelve) can enter the competition.

Any child between the ages of 8 and 12 can participate.

They work from 9 AM-6 PM

They start work from 9 AM and finish at 6 PM

In tennis it is possible to say the score is “Three games to six [games], six games to four” etc. but more often than not, tennis scores are communicated in this way: "three six, six four,” etc.

The prepositions to/with are often used with the verb compare. And in English we use the following constructions to talk about a range of things

8. from something (to something) used to show the range of something
The temperature varies from 80 degrees to minus 10.
The store sells everything from shoelaces to computers.
Conditions vary from school to school.
Source: Oxford Learner’s Dictionary

18a used when showing the whole range of numbers between and including the two that you mention
a toy suitable for children aged three to five
from...to: the numbers from one to ten
Source: Macmillan

But to be clear, there is no sport that uses the score system “three to six, six to four, six to one" that the OP asked in a comment.

Glorfindel
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    "The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day: / The score stood four to two, ... ." The quote is from 1888 but the last three words are true to the way we talk today. – David K Jan 20 '22 at 18:10
  • @DavidK It's American. We never say it like that in Britain. – WS2 Nov 06 '22 at 21:16
  • @WS2 I was responding to the "no sport" remark, not to the original question. The pronunciation of scores is sport-specific as well as (sometimes) country-specific. Even in the US, scores from a tennis match would be pronounced "three-six, six-four, six-one." – David K Nov 06 '22 at 23:10
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To slightly clarify the correct answer already given by Kate

In tennis a competition is broken into Games, Sets, and the Match.

  • First to 5 wins a game, but you must win by two and the points are insanely called out as Love (0), 15 (1), 30 (2), 40 (3), Game (4). If you've won 3 and I've won 0, you're ahead 40-Love.
  • Each set is made up of 6 or more games. Again you must win by 2, and if a set gets to 6-6 there is a tiebreaker. So the highest score without a tiebreaker is 7-5, and with a tiebreaker is 7-6
  • A match is made up of 3 or 5 sets (some Men's matches are 5 sets, some are 3 Women's and mixed doubles are usually 3.

So the long form of your score (3-6, 6-4, 6-1) is "Bojana lost one set to two. Three games to six, six games to four, and six games to one. But pronounced simply "three six, six four, six one".

Additionally if there is a tie-breaker in one of the sets, that is added after the score for that set, so if the second set had been won in a tie-breaker it would be written as "3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1", but it would not typically be pronounced in the score.

Chris Mahnken
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  • We don't call 15-15 or 30-30 but "15 all" or "30 all". 40-40 but "deuce". After that we count "Advantage ", being the one who is a point ahead, and after that we are either back to "deuce" or "Game " when the player is two points ahead and the game is over. – gnasher729 Nov 06 '22 at 21:55