1982 Service Statistics

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bricks

New User
I just realized my 1983 Volvo Grand Prix Yearbook contains 1982 service stats. Here are some of the best-known players' results. I'm surprised Tanner's ace% is lower than McEnroe's. If anyone has other editions, please post the service stats.

Name First Serve%/Aces per 100 service points/DF per 100 service points
Connors 71.9/1.60/1.58
Fibak 70.0/1.21/1.21
Dibbs 69.1/1.05/2.28
Stockton 68.8/3.68/2.25
Teacher 68.7/2.25/3.89
Wilander 68.0/2.09/1.28
Solomon 67.8/0.61/2.22
Vilas 66.5/2.70/3.06
Tom Gullickson 65.7/2.91/2.11
Noah 65.1/7.73/1.99
Alexander 63.9/3.54/3.47
Denton 57.9/11.07/5.56
McEnroe 57.1/9.37/4.02
Lendl 54.7/6.94/2.20
Gerulaitis 61.4/6.29/4.69
Tanner 55.2/8.81/4.28
Kriek 53.8/5.63/6.39
Gomez 63.6/4.86/2.57
Mayotte 61.9/5.34/4.04
Clerc 57.3/4.56/2.68
Nastase 57.8/5.19/3.81
Curren 56.6/7.31/2.67
Gottfried 63.0/3.77/2.52
 
L

Limpinhitter

G.O.A.T.
Noah, McEnroe, Lendl, Tanner and Curren's numbers are impressive in terms of aces/doubles. In the early 80's, there was an article in World Tennis Magazine which said, as I recall, that only the top 5 or so players in the world hit more winners than errors. I knew it was low, but, I didn't expect it to be as low as it was.
 
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F

FiveO

Hall of Fame
Limpinhitter said:
Noah, McEnroe, Lendl, Tanner and Curren's numbers are impressive in terms of aces/doubles. In the early 80's, there was an article in World Tennis Magazine which said, as I recall, that only the top 5 or so players in the world hit more winners than errors. I knew it was low, but, I didn't expect it to be as low as it was.
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If I remember correctly, in that era, no distinction was made between forced, unforced errors and winners.

5
 
D

Datacipher

Banned
bricks said:
I just realized my 1983 Volvo Grand Prix Yearbook contains 1982 service stats. Here are some of the best-known players' results. I'm surprised Tanner's ace% is lower than McEnroe's. If anyone has other editions, please post the service stats.
2
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Tanner did struggle with some elbow problems late in his career...not sure if it was affecting him, but nonetheless, it really says something about Mac's ace ability which is often forgotten now. People forget...Mac's serve had good pop during his prime. (it actually slowed a bit later on) Note that Tanner was still very high....and Mac was only beaten by Denton who had huge heat on his serve. Mac is also clearly ahead of Lendl here. One thing to is that Tanner was often not going for huge aces all the time....but looking to set up his SV...he was also a pretty hot/cold server...so some days he just didn't serve all that great.
 
K

krosero

Legend
I used to find the term "unforced errors" in Google News as far back as the early 70s. Just ran another search and saw a few in the late 60s.

Thanks to the OP for the stats.
 
NonP

NonP

Legend
bricks said:
I just realized my 1983 Volvo Grand Prix Yearbook contains 1982 service stats. Here are some of the best-known players' results. I'm surprised Tanner's ace% is lower than McEnroe's. If anyone has other editions, please post the service stats.

Name First Serve%/Aces per 100 service points/DF per 100 service points
Connors 71.9/1.60/1.58
Fibak 70.0/1.21/1.21
Dibbs 69.1/1.05/2.28
Stockton 68.8/3.68/2.25
Teacher 68.7/2.25/3.89
Wilander 68.0/2.09/1.28
Solomon 67.8/0.61/2.22
Vilas 66.5/2.70/3.06
Tom Gullickson 65.7/2.91/2.11
Noah 65.1/7.73/1.99
Alexander 63.9/3.54/3.47
Denton 57.9/11.07/5.56
McEnroe 57.1/9.37/4.02
Lendl 54.7/6.94/2.20
Gerulaitis 61.4/6.29/4.69
Tanner 55.2/8.81/4.28
Kriek 53.8/5.63/6.39
Gomez 63.6/4.86/2.57
Mayotte 61.9/5.34/4.04
Clerc 57.3/4.56/2.68
Nastase 57.8/5.19/3.81
Curren 56.6/7.31/2.67
Gottfried 63.0/3.77/2.52
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bricks, this is a very useful stat sheet. Do you happen to have stats for any other calendar years?
 
pc1

pc1

G.O.A.T.
bricks said:
I just realized my 1983 Volvo Grand Prix Yearbook contains 1982 service stats. Here are some of the best-known players' results. I'm surprised Tanner's ace% is lower than McEnroe's. If anyone has other editions, please post the service stats.

Name First Serve%/Aces per 100 service points/DF per 100 service points
Connors 71.9/1.60/1.58
Fibak 70.0/1.21/1.21
Dibbs 69.1/1.05/2.28
Stockton 68.8/3.68/2.25
Teacher 68.7/2.25/3.89
Wilander 68.0/2.09/1.28
Solomon 67.8/0.61/2.22
Vilas 66.5/2.70/3.06
Tom Gullickson 65.7/2.91/2.11
Noah 65.1/7.73/1.99
Alexander 63.9/3.54/3.47
Denton 57.9/11.07/5.56
McEnroe 57.1/9.37/4.02
Lendl 54.7/6.94/2.20
Gerulaitis 61.4/6.29/4.69
Tanner 55.2/8.81/4.28
Kriek 53.8/5.63/6.39
Gomez 63.6/4.86/2.57
Mayotte 61.9/5.34/4.04
Clerc 57.3/4.56/2.68
Nastase 57.8/5.19/3.81
Curren 56.6/7.31/2.67
Gottfried 63.0/3.77/2.52
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This is great statistical information. A lot of the service information is along the lines of what I expected. Connors serving in 70 percent range is excellent as well as his low double fault percentage. Gottfried, who was known for having a good serve surprisingly is lower than I would expect on the ace average and higher on DF than I would think.

I'd be curious about McEnroe in 1984 as well as Wilander a little later in his career.

Now I wonder if they included the WCT stats.
 
NatF

NatF

Bionic Poster
pc1 said:
This is great statistical information. A lot of the service information is along the lines of what I expected. Connors serving in 70 percent range is excellent as well as his low double fault percentage. Gottfried, who was known for having a good serve surprisingly is lower than I would expect on the ace average and higher on DF than I would think.

I'd be curious about McEnroe in 1984 as well as Wilander a little later in his career.

Now I wonder if they included the WCT stats.
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A very consistent serve from Connors, barely any aces though. Obviously not a weapon as much as point starter - at least at this stage. Like Nadal the lefty spin made it hard to attack, a high percentage of first serves was good enough to put Connors in a position where his overall game could control the point.
 
pc1

pc1

G.O.A.T.
NatF said:
A very consistent serve from Connors, barely any aces though. Obviously not a weapon as much as point starter - at least at this stage. Like Nadal the lefty spin made it hard to attack, a high percentage of first serves was good enough to put Connors in a position where his overall game could control the point.
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The information that I would love to see is how often Connors or any of those players held serve. Connors did have an excellent Games Won Percentage that year if I recall.
 
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NatF

NatF

Bionic Poster
pc1 said:
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The information that I would love to see is how often Connors or any of those players held serve. Connors did have an excellent Games Won Percentage that year if I recall.
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I'd probably be more interested in Connor's numbers on return considering his reputation, sadly this information is not available.
 
jaggy

jaggy

Talk Tennis Guru
Noah surprises me from my own recollection. I thought Curran would have more aces than he does too.
 
pc1

pc1

G.O.A.T.
the green god said:
People don't give Mac's game, especially his serve enough credit. It was the dominate stroke in tennis from 79-84.
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Definitely one of them anyway. Lot of great strokes in those days but McEnroe's serve is in the running for number one. For players who played that entire time I would also put Connors' backhand there in the running.

In looking at those first service stats Noah's serve really looks good. The serving percentage of 65% with 7.73 aces per 100 and 1.99 doubles per hundred is sensational, especially considering the power of his serve. I really at the Old Tournament of Champions on har tru at Forest Hills when Noah was playing Lendl in the semis. Lendl was back so far that it seemed that if he took a step further he would be in the stands! The pace of those serves from the 6'4" Noah was something to behold.

I am surprised that Tanner didn't serve more aces than McEnroe and others per 100 first serves. Considering that even on the Senior Tour that Tanner set a record that was actually higher than the ATP record at the time I would guess Tanner may still have been the hardest server in tennis. Perhaps the reason was that Tanner was aging at age 31 that year.

One thing the stats don't show are the service winners. I'm curious how McEnroe, Tanner, Lendl would have done there. I would guess Lendl would have done extremely well there. He was great at mixing up his serves.
 
K

KG1965

Legend
pc1 said:
Definitely one of them anyway. Lot of great strokes in those days but McEnroe's serve is in the running for number one. For players who played that entire time I would also put Connors' backhand there in the running.

In looking at those first service stats Noah's serve really looks good. The serving percentage of 65% with 7.73 aces per 100 and 1.99 doubles per hundred is sensational, especially considering the power of his serve. I really at the Old Tournament of Champions on har tru at Forest Hills when Noah was playing Lendl in the semis. Lendl was back so far that it seemed that if he took a step further he would be in the stands! The pace of those serves from the 6'4" Noah was something to behold.

I am surprised that Tanner didn't serve more aces than McEnroe and others per 100 first serves. Considering that even on the Senior Tour that Tanner set a record that was actually higher than the ATP record at the time I would guess Tanner may still have been the hardest server in tennis. Perhaps the reason was that Tanner was aging at age 31 that year.

One thing the stats don't show are the service winners. I'm curious how McEnroe, Tanner, Lendl would have done there. I would guess Lendl would have done extremely well there. He was great at mixing up his serves.
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I think that Roscoe precipitated in the ranking (11 in 1981, 43 in 1982).
From 1981... titles 0 (over 16 in career) and one final (over 38 finals in career).
 
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