Serve speed guns/radar

[BeHappy]

There are certain posters saying that players like Sampras, Becker and Ivanisevic would have been clocked as serving at 140mph/150mph if they were clocked by today's speed guns that measure the speed of the ball as it leaves the racquet.

My memory is that the new speed guns came in around the year 2000 and that it only added around 7-8mph to players serves. And quite a few players like Sampras and Agassi played under the new speed guns and din't serve much faster.

EG Sampras went from the 115-128mph on first serves to 122-135mph, Agassi went from 105mph-115mph on first serves to the 112-122mph range.

Is my memory letting me down or are some forum members delusional teenagers pretending to be older than they are?

[NLBwell]

I can't remember for sure, but your numbers sound reasonable. There have been further incremental improvements in the guns, also, so the 135 might be 140. However, there are some guns which are "juiced" which read much higher than others on the tour (maybe 10mph?). Some of the Davis Cup guns seem to be this way. A Sampras serve on these particular guns might be 150 mph, but wouldn't be on most of the guns.

[The-Champ]

If Rafa can serve 135, I'm sure Pete would exceed that by quite a bit.

[BeHappy]

Originally Posted by NLBwell

I can't remember for sure, but your numbers sound reasonable. There have been further incremental improvements in the guns, also, so the 135 might be 140. However, there are some guns which are "juiced" which read much higher than others on the tour (maybe 10mph?). Some of the Davis Cup guns seem to be this way. A Sampras serve on these particular guns might be 150 mph, but wouldn't be on most of the guns.

Yeah Davis Cup and Queens. Look at Andres Guzalli's list and everyone hits their fastest serves there!

Originally Posted by The-Champ

If Rafa can serve 135, I'm sure Pete would exceed that by quite a bit.

Well.. he didn't! 136-137mph was his top end, and he served 139mph at the Davis Cup if you believe those guns.

Murray hit a 124mph forehand, I guess you think he has a better forehand than Federer?

You all need to realize there's more to serves than MPH.

And you also need to realize that Sampras never had had the biggest first serve. In the 90's Ivanisevic was hitting 1500 aces a year to Sampras's 1000. Philippoussis, and Krajicek were serving in the mid 140'smph (about 15mph faster than Sampras) and Rusedski served 149mph.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by The-Champ

If Rafa can serve 135, I'm sure Pete would exceed that by quite a bit.

+1

10pronations

[The-Champ]

In the 90's i could swear some of Pete's untouchable serves looked a lot bigger than just 128.

[LeeD]

The Pistol hit with huge amounts of top/slice spin, so his ball speed was never as fast as the pure flat hitters, but it was more effective with the spin.
ColinDibley hit 149's back in 1977, while tall guys known for big serves, like StanSmith, around 124. VictorAmaya was at the 144 range...at 6'6" and maybe 210 lbs., a serving behemoth.
JohannKriek, at 5'8" or so, hit into the 127's, with huge spin similar to Pete's.
KevinCurran at 6'3" hit into the 138's.
The new guys don't hit harder, no do they volley any better than those guys. The new guys are much fitter, change directions better, run faster, and hit much stronger groundstrokes.

[BeHappy]

Originally Posted by LeeD

The Pistol hit with huge amounts of top/slice spin, so his ball speed was never as fast as the pure flat hitters, but it was more effective with the spin.

I know, but these delusional 15 year old kids posting as 60 year olds on this forum don't know that. They think Sampras had the biggest serve ever.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by The-Champ

In the 90's i could swear some of Pete's untouchable serves looked a lot bigger than just 128.

They were if measured right after impact as is the custom today, rather than as it crossed the net.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by LeeD

The Pistol hit with huge amounts of top/slice spin, so his ball speed was never as fast as the pure flat hitters, but it was more effective with the spin.
ColinDibley hit 149's back in 1977, while tall guys known for big serves, like StanSmith, around 124. VictorAmaya was at the 144 range...at 6'6" and maybe 210 lbs., a serving behemoth.
JohannKriek, at 5'8" or so, hit into the 127's, with huge spin similar to Pete's.
KevinCurran at 6'3" hit into the 138's.
The new guys don't hit harder, no do they volley any better than those guys. The new guys are much fitter, change directions better, run faster, and hit much stronger groundstrokes.

FYI, there are no pure flat servers in pro tennis. They all hit a ton of spin. Sampras hit 2 tons.

[LeeD]

Depends what you think "bigger" means.
Some say pure mph is the biggest.
Some tie effectiveness into the serve equation, which can mean a great volley.
We know Edberg did not serve fast. But it was effective for his game, so it was in some ways, "BIG".
We know ColinDibley never made it very far in most tournaments, was relegated to lower 30's in his best years, but he served faster than almost anyone of his day. Was his serve "big"?

[LeeD]

It's almost impossible to hit a tennis ball purely flat, we know that.
But some, like Dr.Ivo, hit flatter first serves than most anyone else.

[BeHappy]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Depends what you think "bigger" means.
Some say pure mph is the biggest.
Some tie effectiveness into the serve equation, which can mean a great volley.
We know Edberg did not serve fast. But it was effective for his game, so it was in some ways, "BIG".
We know ColinDibley never made it very far in most tournaments, was relegated to lower 30's in his best years, but he served faster than almost anyone of his day. Was his serve "big"?

I know that, I'm talking about mph on the first serve in this thread. Look at Limpinhitter's posts on this thread. Do you believe this guy even saw Sampras play if he believes Sampras could have served 150mph?

[LeeD]

Actually, while I often disagree with the Limper, I agree on this one!
You see, you guys are always searching old articles on service speeds. Limp and I have stood courtside while Agassi, Kriek, Dibley, and quite a few other's practiced their serves.
I sat behind a couple of Q guys who had to face Sampras in the first round. Believe me, when Sampras uncorks a flatter serve, it's smoking fast. And I've tried to return KevinCurran's best. It's just that Sampras is not out to impress US with ball speed, he's instead trying to win the point.
As for Agassi, for SURE he hits into the 130's, it's that he never chooses to try one during a match against a top player. What's the point? He already knows Becker and Sampras can hit harder, and his game relies on running his opponent ragged, NOT crushing ONE shot to end the point. Ala Nadal.
If a backcourt players ends the point with ONE serve, it's to his DISadvantage. Because he relies on running his opponent!
Think of Edberg's serve. Most go right around 95-105. For sure, if he chooses to flatten it, it'd go easily into the highest 120's, if not 130's. But he CHOOSES to hit heavy top/slice, top/twist, and pure topspin serves, to allow himself time to get close to net position for his volleys.
Same with PatCash and PatRafter. They seldom hit flat first serves, but you can bet, during practice, they can smoke into the lower 130 realm. But they also want to WIN points, and for them, getting closer to net allows them a greater percentage of WINNING the point than a flat smoking heater that goes in maybe 35%.

[Moose Malloy]

Goran served 145 during an exo last year.
didn't Sampras get to 140 at an exo in San Jose last year? And his readings were high in the Fed exos as well, seemed higher than they were on his last year on tour. Maybe that was more about his new racquet than the radar guns.

Mac was clocked at 127 in an exo I saw a few years ago(which he never got while he was on tour)

I recall the new radar guns coming around 2003/2004(the '04 USO had really high mph's throughout, I think they were on average higher than they were at last year's Open actually, I was looking up the old USO websites a while back)

I read an article that discussed average mph's throughout the years & I think it mentioned there was a rather noticeable increase in the mph tour average from '99 to '04

EG Sampras went from the 115-128mph on first serves to 122-135mph

that's a pretty big difference, going from 115 to 135. I don't think Sampras hit a faster serve than 122 at the '91 USO. at '02 USO his fastest was 135 I believe.

There are certain posters saying that players like Sampras, Becker and Ivanisevic would have been clocked as serving at 140mph/150mph

Andres thinks 1996 Goran would be in the 140s with todays guns

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...=389483&page=2

[LeeD]

Goran is 6'4", long limbed, a trained professional tennis player. For sure, he can serve as fast as anyone except taller, younger, stronger guys.
Roddick is an aberration, at 6'2", serving like he does.
Raonic is more the standard. Tall 6'5" athlete, young and still flexible.
I'd BET OliverRochus could serve into the highest 129's, if he wanted. His percentage might be something like 20%, which would hurt his game style, but he's strong enough, flexible enough, and explosive enough to do it. What would be the point? He needs to EXTEND points to win, not shorten them and get into a slugfest.

[BeHappy]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Goran served 145 during an exo last year.
didn't Sampras get to 140 at an exo in San Jose last year? And his readings were high in the Fed exos as well, seemed higher than they were on his last year on tour. Maybe that was more about his new racquet than the radar guns.

Mac was clocked at 127 in an exo I saw a few years ago(which he never got while he was on tour)

I recall the new radar guns coming around 2003/2004(the '04 USO had really high mph's throughout, I think they were on average higher than they were at last year's Open actually, I was looking up the old USO websites a while back)

I read an article that discussed average mph's throughout the years & I think it mentioned there was a rather noticeable increase in the mph tour average from '99 to '04



that's a pretty big difference, going from 115 to 135. I don't think Sampras hit a faster serve than 122 at the '91 USO. at '02 USO his fastest was 135 I believe.



Andres thinks 1996 Goran would be in the 140s with todays guns

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...=389483&page=2

Exo's don't count for extremely obvious entertainment related reasons. Sampras didn't serve harder in his Fed exo's than he did in his Wimbledon match with Federer where he served 136mph in the 5th set tiebreak, his biggest regular tour serve ever.

7-8mph is a TINY difference comparred to the 25-30mph Limpinhitter is looking for.

The new guns came in in around 2000.

If Sampras could serve 150mph nowadays you must think that Rusedski could serve 179mph? And why wouldn't Goran serve in the low 140's consistently with the new guns and an uninjured shoulder when he served 135mph consistently with the old guns? Andres isn't saying anything controversial there. What you forget is that Ivanisevic had a much bigger first serve than Sampras in every single way. His personal best is nearly 1500 aces to Sampras's 1000.

Sampras was a 19 year old under developed kid in 1990 when he won his first open, so why are you compared his serve speeds there? From 1994-1999 his top serves were 128mph, from 2000/2001 onwards once the new guns were installed, his biggest serves were around 135mph:


It's time to get real.

[Romismak]

Agree with OP that the speed difference isn´t that big and definitely nobody would hit 150mph regularly - nobody isn´t hitting 150mph regularly from hardest servers in this era.

You may hit 150mph serve once in season... but guy like Sampras i think already was hitting his ,,maximum,, speed in 2002 for example - he won USO so i don´t remember his numbers there but 2002 USO already i think has new speed guns, so maybe you can add few mph to hix fastest serves from that USO - when he is hitting faster at exhos i think exhos doesn´t have such accurate speed guns and don´t know maybe he is playing with better racquet? so is he able to hit it harder?

Guys like Krajicek, Ivanisevic were having most aces-per 1st serve put in play in their era, Ivanisevic´serve was effective mostly, becuase he was lefty, Krajicek howewer was hitting really hard, but i can´t see him hit much harder than say Raonic today-who is regularly hitting hardest 1st serves-135mph-low 140s all the time if flat bomb.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Goran served 145 during an exo last year.
didn't Sampras get to 140 at an exo in San Jose last year? And his readings were high in the Fed exos as well, seemed higher than they were on his last year on tour. Maybe that was more about his new racquet than the radar guns.

Mac was clocked at 127 in an exo I saw a few years ago(which he never got while he was on tour)

I recall the new radar guns coming around 2003/2004(the '04 USO had really high mph's throughout, I think they were on average higher than they were at last year's Open actually, I was looking up the old USO websites a while back)

I read an article that discussed average mph's throughout the years & I think it mentioned there was a rather noticeable increase in the mph tour average from '99 to '04



that's a pretty big difference, going from 115 to 135. I don't think Sampras hit a faster serve than 122 at the '91 USO. at '02 USO his fastest was 135 I believe.



Andres thinks 1996 Goran would be in the 140s with todays guns

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...=389483&page=2

In the first set of his 2001 match against Federer, Sampras' average first serve speed was 125 and Federer's was 114 as I recall. Sampras' average second serve speed was 111 or so.

[LeeD]

..and when Sampras would decide to flatten out what is considered the heaviest spinning fast first serve of anyone, you can easily expect that serve to go into the highest 130's, if not more.