What do you call a sad tennis match?

This joke serves up a classic pun, playing on the similar sounds of two very different words. The humor comes from the unexpected twist of "mourning," which means to grieve or express sorrow, with "morning," the early part of the day. But the real ace is how it ties into tennis terminology.

In tennis, a "set" is a crucial part of the scoring, where players compete to win a certain number of games. When you combine the idea of sadness, or "mourning," with a "set," you get a clever, albeit gloomy, image of a tennis match filled with tears instead of volleys. It's a playful smash that takes a familiar sports term and gives it an emotional, and quite funny, spin.