Most tennis terms are quick and short. Games are accumulated into sets (first to six wins, and if it's 6-5 play continues until a two-set margin is accomplished), and sets into matches. Most matches are best of three sets, but important ones require three-of-five.

The first Olympic tennis events, at Athens in 1896, occurred during the early stages of the sport's development. That could be why a lack of coherent leadership in the early part of the 20th Century would eventually doom the game's Olympic status. The 1920 "lawn tennis" tournament in Antwerp, for instance, was played under wet conditions, with no towels or hot water for the athletes. In Paris four years later, the women were locked out of their lockers. The sport was of trifling priority for the IOC, and as such didn't return until 1988.

Tennis balls are yellow.

Tennis, however, was a demonstration sport at Mexico City 1968 and Los Angeles 1984. It was during that latter Olympics that top pros such as Stefan Edberg and Steffi Graf thrilled capacity crowds at the UCLA tennis center, and the display was the final capstone on tennis' reemergence as a true Olympic sport. After baby steps in Seoul, the Barcelona 1992 draw included the top five men in the world, including Pete Sampras and Boris Becker. Since then, the Olympics has been generally considered the "Fifth Major," along with the French, Australian, American and English (Wimbledon) Open championships.

Tennis Fun Facts:

• Why is it called tennis? Perhaps we'll never know. Some believe that the word comes from "tenez" (or "tenetz"), a French word meaning "take heed." Others think that it's a geographical marker: Tinnis was a city in ancient Egypt famous for its textiles.

• Irishman John Boland travelled to the Athens 1896 Games as a spectator, but came home with the ultimate souvenir -- an Olympic championship! The first men's singles winner also paired with German Friedrich Traun, whose doubles partner withdrew because of injury. It wasn't deemed an Olympic event, but the two won the doubles event together as a multinational team.

• Jeu de paume (or "game of the hand") is a French ballgame that's a key part of tennis' lineage. It was originally played without racquets, much the same way that basketball is played without jet packs. But people started calling the racquet sport jeu de paume, forcing the game's purists to call the hand-based game "real tennis." The "lawn tennis" tournament was supplemented at London 1908 with a jeu de paume event, won by American Jay Gould.

• Some people think that BMX, snowboarding and taekwondo are diluting the Olympic menu, but consider London 1908. In addition to jeu de paume, the organizers went tennis-bonkers with the addition of men's singles and doubles in "rackets," a forerunner of squash. Incidentally, squash afficionados are pushing for that game to be included on the program in 2016.

In 2008:

The Olympic tournament will take place during the first week of the Games, from Aug. 10-17 (Days 2 through 9). The men's and women's singles will feature most of the top 48 racquet-wielders in the world, and there were very few abstentions among the elite players. The draws also feature 12 players chosen by the International Tennis Federation, and four special invitations. One of those invitations was granted to Nicolas Massu -- he won the men's gold medal for Chile in 2004, but has seen his world ranking dip into the triple digits in recent years.

All-Time Medal Standings:

(Photo via 1988 Official Report)