Tennis How fast is your serve

HOW FAST IS YOUR SERVE?

Below You will find instruction on how to measure
your serving speed without a radar gun - by using a stopwatch

Coming later will be a process on how to measure your
serving speed with just your eyes.

Later we will compare the methods with an actual radar gun - stay tuned

On the ATP and WTA tour, you hear alot these days about thespeed of serves of the players, but the speeds that are recorded are not necessarily the fastest ones. If a player ia playing on an outside court and blast a 200mph serve, no one will know about it - the reason, the radar guns are only on the show courts, usually center court of higher echeleon tournaments.

Legend has it that Colin Dibley served over 140 mph with a wooden racquet in the 60's and 70's. We will never know for sure, but I don't do not doubt it, if Philippoussis and Sampras can still blast 125mph serves with wood racquets, it's definitely possible for a guy like Greg Rusedski to reach the 140mph barrier with a wood racquet also.

1) Greg Rusedski          143                         1) Venus Williams                      124
2) Mark Philippoussis    142                         2) Brenda Schultz-McCarthy    123
3) Julian Alonso              140                        3) Jana Novotna                         116
4) Ricrad Krajicek         139                        4) Kristie Boogert                       111
5) Jonathan Stark           138                        5) Monica Seles                         109
6) Mark Rosset               134                       6) Magui Serna                          108

To serve fast a player needs the following ingredients:

1) Good shoulder turn (part of your back facing the net)
2) Good knee bend ((it does not have to be 45% angle bend)
3) Hit while going up at the ball (imagine a volleyball player tossing , jumping and going up to hit the ball over the net)
4) Toss out in front (if the ball falls it would land inside the court)
5) Full arm extension (Your racquet arm full extended at impact)
6) Relaxed arm and body (the more tense the slower teh serve)
7) Pronate (roll of the forearm towards the inside)
8) Constant rituals (having the same preparation over and over)
9) Good visualization ( seeing the ball going in before yu hit it)
10) Confidence in your delivery (If you think it's going out, it's already out)

There's no need to go out and buy a radar gun, you can easily figure out the speed of your serve with a stopwatch and the help of a friend.

On the ATP tour, the radar gun gives a reading at about one or two feet after impact, which means the ball is traveling at its fastest speed when it is registered on the radar gun. By the time the ball reaches the returner, it has slowed down. The amount of speed reduction could be a slight variance or it could be a considerable amount.

Factors that slows the speed of a served ball include:

1) Air, especially if the server is going against a stiff wind.

2) Atmosphere, the distance (height) from sea level

3) Court surface, red clay with a lot of top soil

4) The weight of the ball

5) The amount of fuzz on the ball

Basically, a 137MPH serve at Roland Garros with a heavy ball, dirtied with clay and slowed down by the friction of the court will not be as fast as a 137MPH serve at Wimbledon, using a lighter ball which stays low and picks up speed (skids) when it makes contact with a wet grass.

In a way, figuring out the speed of your serve with a stop watch may be more representative if not more accurate than the radar gun number taken immediately after impact. It would be even more indicative and practical, if the radar gun gave the speed of the ball as it travels across the baseline.

The stopwatch number will be the average speed that the ball is traveling, the formula to figure out the average in miles per hour is as follows:

Length divided by time, times 60 divided by 88

Length of a tennis court is 78 feet divided by the time it took the serve to reach the opposite baseline, this number times 60 divided by 88, to convert the figure in miles per hour.

Let's say I serve the ball and it takes .76 of a second to reach the opposite baseline, my serve would have been traveling at an average speed of 70 miles per hour.

78' / .76 * 60 / 88 (78 divided by .76 times 60 divide 88)

Get it....? Good!

Now, how to actually perform the experiment:

Get yourself a good stopwatch, one that can be stopped and started easily, a friend with good vision, ears and hands, make him or her stand right at the baseline on the ad side if you are serving on the deuce court and on the deuce side if you are serving on the ad side.

You goal is to serve the ball down the T, ( that's where you will get your fastest reading) your friend will listen for the sound\impact of your racquet on the ball and simultaneously (ASAP) start the stopwatch, while keeping his eyes on the baseline, looking for the ball to cross over. As soon as the ball crosses over the baseline, your friend should stop the watch.

To get a more representative number, serve at least 10 balls and average them out.

We save you the trouble of doing the math, your serve speed will correspond to the time registered on the stopwatch.

Good luck and have fun, and don't forget to let us know how big your serve is.

seconds MPH

.76 70

.75 71

.74 72

.73 73

.72 74

.71 75

.70 76

.69 77

.68 78

.67 79

.66 81

.65 82

.64 83

.63 84

.62 86

.61 87

.60 88

.59 90

.58 92

.57 93

.56 95

.55 97

.54 98

..53 100

.52 102

.51 104

.50 106

.49 109.5

.48 111

.47 113

.46 116

.45 118

.44 121

.43 124

.42 127

.41 130

.40 133

.39 136

.38 140