Source: Tennis 101: How to Score

Serena Williams is on a roll! After winning Wimbledon and Olympic gold, she's showing us how it's done at the US Open. As the tournament heads toward the finals, here is a primer on scoring so you can keep up with the matches. Tennis scoring can seem complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll feel like a seasoned fan. Here's what you need to know to get started scoring in singles.

The Framework

• Each tennis match is made up of two to three sets. To win a set, you must win at least six games.
• The games are scored starting at "love" (or zero) and go up to 40, but that's actually just four points. From love, the first point is 15, then 30, then 40, then game point, which wins the game.

Starting the Game

• To determine who serves first, you flip a coin or (more likely) spin a racket. Whoever wins the toss gets to decide one of four things: that she wants to serve first, that she wants to receive first, which side of the

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By Mindith Rahmat

I went to a private all-girls high school where softball and volleyball players were the elite athletes. Although other sports were also popular, the volleyball and softball players were usually the ones receiving scholarships and setting records. They were the crème de la crème. Many of them went on to play at the collegiate level, and I know a few who went even further.

Today, women's sports at the college level are more popular than ever, and softball and volleyball remain among the most popular of them. According to "Women in Collegiate Sport," a long-term study conducted by Professors Acosta and Carpenter of Brooklyn College, volleyball and softball rank second and fifth in the top 5 list of women's varsity sports, respectively. Though gender roles are always debatable, there's just something about these two sports that seems to draw the best of the best female athletes.

In fact, a recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning

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by Charlotte Andersen for SHAPE.com

Shannon Eastin made headlines for being the first ever female referee in an NFL game. But while the rest of the world was surprised, she always knew it would happen. In 1999 Eastin said,"It may sound crazy to some people, but I think I can be in the NFL some day. You've got to believe in yourself. If you don't, nobody else will."

We like how you think, Shannon! Here are more awesome tips from the lovely ladies who rule the sidelines:

1. Exercise might save your life: Robin Roberts, one of the first black female sports anchors for ESPN's SportsCenter, credits regular exercise for helping her cope with her recently diagnosed myelodysplastic syndrome , a blood and bone-marrow disorder. The Good Morning America host and champion of Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity says, "They say I'm younger and fitter than most people who confront this disease and will be cured."

RELATED: The Spandex Pants Workout

2. Fit is strong, not necessarily

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Monica Murphy-Vargas, the founder of SportsDivas, grew up immersed in sports. She played softball, golfed, and swam; she rooted for the Indians; she became, in college, a self-described "obsessed and annoying Ohio State fan." But when she landed a job at ESPN, Murphy-Vargas says in the new site's note to readers, she felt overwhelmed with all the sports intel she had to get on top of fast. "I realized that there was no quick way to really learn sports; no way to break through all the sports news and clutter targeted to educated fans," she remembers.

It's an issue I've given a lot of thought to myself, for several reasons. One, my boyfriends never know that much about baseball, and I've many times considered printing and laminating "Bunting's Baseball Basics" wallet cards to save me trying to explain why a given play or at-bat has me in the fetal position on the couch. Two, that cuts both ways – my attempts to learn about the NFL meant that my patient friend Alesh spent an hour drawing

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I was fascinated by Mark Singer's recent New Yorker piece about marathon fraudster Kip Litton. And by "marathon fraudster," I don't mean Litton's con itself lasted a long time, but rather that he went to elaborate lengths to fake impressive times in actual marathons. ("Marathoner" Rosie Ruiz, listed by SoccerLens as one of the greatest all-time sports cheats, actually inspired many of the tech checks Litton circumvented to score such great split times.) (Allegedly.)

Singer's writing is fantastic, and anyway, I'm always drawn to that kind of story, the committed con man or identity thief living under a stolen name, taking wrongful credit for accomplishments. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I remember James Hogue, a.k.a. "Alexi Indris-Santana" -- himself an accomplished runner, under both assumed names and his own -- getting arrested in class a few buildings away when I was a freshman in college. More likely, it's because I have the most flagrant "tells" in the world and have

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