WHY THE SERVE IS THE MOST DOMINANT SHOT IN TENNIS-And What the Numbers Tell Us
WHY THE SERVE IS THE MOST DOMINANT SHOT IN TENNIS — And What the Numbers Tell Us At the 2022 US Open, data on men's serves reveals the game is won or lost before the rally even starts. The Numbers Don't Lie Most tennis coaches talk about technique. Grip, toss, pronation, leg drive. All of it matters. But here is a question worth sitting with: if the serve is so important, why do so few coaching programmes build their match strategy around what the serve data actually shows? The skill of holding serve could well be not to panic, and to trust your service 'systems' At the US Open — one of the most competitive environments in professional tennis — the men's singles statistics make the picture very clear. The server held their service on 79% of the time . That is not a marginal advantage. That is near-dominance. And when you break it down by score within the game, the picture becomes even more instructive. The Server has a big advantage over the Returner The Sc...