Meaning: You know what they say, never fall in love with a tennis (or squash) player because love means nothing to them.
Origin: Our favourite theory over the years has always been the one about "love" deriving from the French word for egg, l'oeuf. Because an egg looks like a zero l'oeuf came to be used in France as the scoring term for zero points, and from there it was "Anglicised" into "love". (Spot the cricket connection: a duck - ie a score of zero - is said to come from "duck's egg", again, the shape of a zero).
But, as is the way, there are alternative theories, among them that "love" simply comes from the expression "for neither love nor money", which, of course, means nothing. Or, similarly, that it originates in the phrase "to play for the love of the game" - supporters of this theory point to the fact that the Latin for amateur is "amator", which means "lover". And "love" is probably the score a player of amateur standard will have to settle for, particularly if he's up against Federer or Nadal on a good day.
A chap by the name of Heiner Gillmeister, in a book on the history of tennis, came up with another take on the origin of the term, claiming that it is actually rooted in the Dutch and Flemish word "lof" as in "omme lof spelen" meaning to play for honour.
He found the words to a 1583 song, like you do, which described a battle between the citizens of Antwerp and the French in terms of a tennis match. The French cheated, so the people of Antwerp ended up scoring nothing - but they retained their "lof", honour.
Take your pick. We still like the French egg.
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