Tennis game state
tournament → match → set → game → point state = sets · games in the current set · point score · server
The server matters as much as the score: 4–4 on serve is very different from 4–4 with the returner serving next, and 30–40 is a break point only for the player returning. A break point late in a deciding set is about as high-leverage as tennis gets — see leverage.
Observed granularity depends on the source
| Coverage | What you see | What is left blank |
|---|---|---|
| Point score + server | Set and game score, the current point score and who is serving | — |
| Set and game score only | Set and game score as each update is observed | Point score and server: shown as unavailable, never invented |
| Result only | The final score | Everything in between |
Which coverage a match gets depends on the tour and event feed. The product labels the mode — point-by-point, observed, or result-only — so you know which one you are reading.
Live updates are observations taken every several seconds. Two observations can be several points apart, and gaps are not filled in. That is observation granularity, not point-by-point coverage.
Replay
Replay walks the events that were actually stored, in order. Point-by-point is never reconstructed from a final score, so a match observed only at the game level replays at the game level.
PBEcast shows state, not a forecast. Holding serve at 4–4 tells you the score, not that the server is likely to win the set; and a source's delay means the court is always slightly ahead of the screen. Some events may have no live coverage at all.