Love followed a certain course in North Africa (4)
I believe the answer is:
oran
'north africa' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both locations as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'love followed a certain course in' is the wordplay.
'love' becomes 'o' (love means zero in tennis).
'followed' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a' becomes 'an'.
'certain course' becomes 'r' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'o'+'an'='oan'
'oan' enclosing 'r' is 'ORAN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for oran that I've seen before include "Algerian port" , "Algerian seaport" , "African port" .)