Match point means a pair can win the match by winning the next point. Set point could finish the set; game point could finish the game. One point can be all three. The names describe what is available, not what has already been won.
When does a point become match point?
Use the best-of-three, advantage-scoring format in FIP Rule 1. A pair that leads by one set and serves at 5–4, 40–30 in the second has match point. Winning that point would complete the game, set and match. If that pair were a set behind instead, the same 5–4, 40–30 score would offer set point, with the match still to be decided.
If the receivers save the match point in the first example, the game reaches deuce. Another match point can follow; the first opportunity did not guarantee the ending. Check the format when playing short sets or a deciding match tie-break. Our tie-break explanation covers that separate scoring situation.
In this imagined best-of-three match, the opponents won the first set six-four and now serve at five-four and forty-thirty in the second. The receiving player knows the score. She also knows how close her pair have stayed through a match they once would have left behind much earlier.
They return the serve and exchange several shots. Her final reply catches the net and falls back on her side. The opponents have won the point and the match. There is no next ball in which to revise that result.
A match allowed to end
After the players have greeted one another, she begins listing mistakes. Her partner lets her finish, then names an exchange they made together in the first set. She remembers it. For a moment, the whole match becomes larger than its last stroke.
The World gives completion a place of its own. A result can be acknowledged alongside something a pair have learned to inhabit. Integration may take longer than the final point; it cannot happen if the next demand for proof consumes every ending.
They sit down. The loss is still a loss. Their conversation now has room for what they will want to carry into another match, and for what belongs to this one.