English

Alternative forms

• game, set and match

Phrase

game, set, match

1. (sports, tennis) An expression commonly used at the conclusion of a tennis match to indicate that a competitor has won.
   • 1915, Ralph Henry Barbour, Left Tackle Thayer, ch. 13:

     "Game, set and match to Byrd!" announced Westcott above the applause. "Byrd wins the School Championship!"

2. (idiomatic, by extension) An expression indicating finality, announcing that a series of events—usually involving some form of rivalry—has reached a conclusion.
   • 2003 Feb. 19, Christopher Buckley, "Opinion: Another March of Folly?," New York Times (retrieved 9 June 2015):

     A few years after that, Mikhail Gorbachev effectively surrendered in a cold war that had lasted almost four decades, and in a few more years the Berlin Wall came down. Game, set, match.

   • 2010 July 6, Mark Thompson, "Hyping Hypersonic Missiles," Time (retrieved 9 June 2015):

     The atom bomb: U.S. 1, U.S.S.R. 0. Then came Sputnik, and the score was tied at 1 apiece. Then Apollo and putting a man on the moon — game, set, match.

   • 2014 Sep. 30, Dave Altavilla, "The Most Important Promised Feature Of Windows 10," Forbes (retrieved 9 June 2015):

     This is game, set and match for Microsoft. . . . [I]f Microsoft can pull off one operating system and one companion App Store that functions seamlessly across all device types from smartphones, to tablets, notebooks, hybrid 2-in-1 devices and desktops, all with common apps that just work, they could very well one-up the competition.