Greatest Serves of All Time

dr7 · Sep 2, 2016

NonP said:
I actually had the '93 YEC #s but only in my Sampras file. Damn even when you think you got everything there's always something slipping you by. Will add to the list shortly.

I won't dig into a bunch of stats, but from the "eye test" I have to give the nod to Sampras. You don't beat Agassi in 4 out of 5 Grand Slam finals unless you have a serious serve. That serve, 1st and 2nd serve got him out of some big holes countless times and he did it on some really BIG points in really BIG matches. That is part of my assessment, BIG Points, BIG matches, coming through under pressure. Pete seemed to be the first guy that gambled, would pick his spots and go for huge 2nd serves. Pete was only 6 feet or maybe 6.1, but he had a beautiful, fluid motion that was repeatable and didn't break down under pressure.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

NonP · Sep 3, 2016

krosero said:
@NonP, here are some more unreturned stats from the pre-OE. Not sure how many you have but some of them at least will be new for you.

Budge d. von Cramm, 1937 Wimbledon final, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2
Budge served on 111 points and 15 serves did not come back: 13.5%
Cramm served on 76 points and 12 serves did not come back: 15.8%

Gonzalez d. Schroeder, 1949 U.S. Championships final, 16-18, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4
First set only (34 games):
Gonzalez served on 96 points in the first set, and 35 serves did not come back (16 were aces): 36.4%.
Schroeder served on 109 points in the first set, and 30 serves did not come back (6 were aces): 27.5%.

Olmedo d. Laver, 1959 Wimbledon final, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4
In the 24 games I saw:
Olmedo served on 60 points, and 17 serves did not come back: 28.3%
Laver served on 82 points, and 21 serves did not come back: 25.6%

Fraser d. Laver, 1960 Wimbledon final, 6-4, 3-6, 9-7, 7-5
In the 36 games I saw:
Fraser served on 106 points, and 33 serves did not come back: 31.1%
Laver served on 137 points, and 28 serves did not come back: 20.4%

Santana d. Ralston, 1966 Wimbledon final, 6-4, 11-9, 6-4
Santana served on 133 points, and 39 serves did not come back: 29.3%
Ralston served on 114 points, and 35 serves did not come back: 30.7%

George Lyttleton-Rogers, an Irish player measuring six feet four inches tall, had 34 unreturned serves in a four-set Davis Cup victory over de Stefani, on grass (May 5-7, 1938). I don’t know how many points he served so I’m estimating an unreturned rate of around 28-34%.

I had the #s for the Gonzales match and also Laver's vs. Fraser, but since they weren't complete I decided against posting them. The other ones I indeed didn't have. Grazie for bringing them to our attention.

krosero said:
In your email you asked me for all of the unreturned stats I had for Vines but we can actually include another one, and it would top all of these. Vines reportedly served 30 "aces" against Bunny Austin in the 1932 Wimbledon final, winning 6-4, 6-2, 6-0. (He held in 11 of 12 service games.) I never calculated an unreturned rate for this match because we only know the "aces." But with 30 aces, I know he served 79 points in total, so that's an unreturned rate of at least 38.0%, which is, if I'm not mistaken, the highest we've yet found before the OE.

I think Vines' rate in that match is not going to go higher; there's a very good chance that the "aces" here represent all of the unreturned serves.

I may have mentioned before that American and British stats often differed dramatically, with Americans sticking closer to clean winners, and the English using judgment calls extensively, on serves and all other strokes.

Best example: when Budge defeated von Cramm in the '37 Wimbledon final, an American boxscore gave Don just 2 aces, but he was credited with 15 "service aces" by Lawn Tennis and Badminton, a British magazine. Von Cramm had zero aces in the American boxscore, but across the pond he was credited with 12.

Lawn Tennis and Badminton noted explicitly, in its report of that match, that their term "service aces" included every serve that was unreturned.

The 30 "aces" that Vines served against Bunny Austin in 1932, I don't what the ultimate source for that stat was. But if the source was British, which I think it probably was, then we're likely looking at 30 unreturned serves in total, with an unknown number of "clean aces" in there.

Anyway, Vines tops the pre-OE numbers so far, with at least 38.0%.

Next best is Tilden in his 1930 loss to Doeg, with 37.4%.

Then we've got Vines against Perry in '31, which you noted above, 35.7%.

Doeg was 34.3% and 29.6% in his last two rounds at the 1930 US Nationals, which I think must be representative of what he could do, since that was the only major he won.

Pancho Gonzalez, for one (long) set in 1949, was at 36.4%

It's quite likely those 30 "aces" by Vines are in fact all of his unreturned serves in that match, as 30 clean aces in such a short 3-setter would be an exceptional # even now. Let me know if you ever confirm it or see it contradicted in another report, otherwise we'll go with 30 out of 79 for Vines. Do you have Bunny's total in that match, BTW?

P.S. Moose got 33 and 29 unreturned serves for Santana and Ralston respectively in their '66 Wimby final. Not sure how/where you got 39 and 35.

And thought I'd point out you got the year wrong ('48 rather than '49) in your OP about the Gonzales match. Might wanna go back and correct it.

You're welcome.

Moose Malloy said:
@NonP
Here are Donald youngs numbers vs muller that you asked for. 18/72.
I'll try to get stats on the Newport final at some point.

Hey Moose, thanks for the Donald #s. And I'd be most interested to see the stats from the Newport final. Not just 'cause it had two heavyweights going at each other on grass but also 'cause Ivo's #s for some reason tend to be somewhat underwhelming in his matches against other servebots, or at least among those we have so far. I'm guessing the mere horror of having to play a clone of himself psyches him out.

Limpinhitter said:
There is some good video of Gerald Patterson's immaculate service technique:

Believe those have been posted/viewed before. Anyhoo a new shout-out to the old-timers can't hurt.

dr7 said:
I won't dig into a bunch of stats, but from the "eye test" I have to give the nod to Sampras. You don't beat Agassi in 4 out of 5 Grand Slam finals unless you have a serious serve. That serve, 1st and 2nd serve got him out of some big holes countless times and he did it on some really BIG points in really BIG matches. That is part of my assessment, BIG Points, BIG matches, coming through under pressure. Pete seemed to be the first guy that gambled, would pick his spots and go for huge 2nd serves. Pete was only 6 feet or maybe 6.1, but he had a beautiful, fluid motion that was repeatable and didn't break down under pressure.

dr7, I assume you're new here so let me say welcome to the forum and direct you to the very first post of this thread, which explains the purpose and methodology of this ranking/discussion:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/greatest-serves-of-all-time.306579/

I've said several times before that all things considered I'd pick Pete over anyone else for that proverbial do-or-die match, but as a pure stroke I do think his serves falls just short of Goran's and Ivo's. Having said that I'm currently considering moving Sampras to the very top of the heap, not because of that clutch factor but also because some of the stats I've recently unearthed strongly suggest his serve even as a stand-alone shot was hardly second to anyone's. Stay tuned.

Moose Malloy · Sep 3, 2016

^I don't count aces with unreturned serves, remember? Kroseros numbers on Santana Ralston are correct.

NonP · Sep 3, 2016

Moose Malloy said:
^I don't count aces with unreturned serves, remember? Kroseros numbers on Santana Ralston are correct.

So are you still doing this or did you at some point start including aces in your counts of unreturned serves?

Moose Malloy · Sep 4, 2016

Like I said before, I only do that in this thread. I did change the language to return errors instead of unreturned serves at some point.
I certainly didn't expect anyone to care about that stat or start archiving my work, esp all these years later(the Santana thread is from 2011)
Seemed like krosero was the only one who even read what I posted, so I rarely post any stats threads anymore(still do stats though)
most posters here seemed to just care about goat debates and #1 for 1964, 1977 etc...

NonP · Sep 5, 2016

OK, time for a new update. See if you can locate the changes in our main ranking:

Ivanisevic
Karlovic
Sampras
Gonzales
Krajicek
Arthurs
Roddick
Newcombe
Isner
Becker
Philippoussis
Zivojinovic
McEnroe
Raonic
Curren
Stich
Tanner
Rusedski
Federer
Muller
Smith

The Honorary Hall of Fame remains intact (by order of birth as usual):

McLoughlin, Maurice - perhaps the first distinguished cannonball serve in tennis history
Tilden - yet another storied power serve, which he bolstered with spin and accuracy
Doeg, John - Ivanisevic to Vines' Sampras, a southpaw whose serve was considered one of the two or three greatest ever (along with Vines') in his heyday
Stoefen, Lester - one of the first giants with a feared high-rise rocket launcher
Vines - by many accounts, the best and fastest serve of the pre-WWII era
Kramer - in addition to a formidable first delivery, perhaps the best second serve before Newcombe and Sampras
Denton, Steve - his unusual service motion notwithstanding, an ace dispenser that could bring enormous heat
Edberg - for his iconic kicker (any logo ring a bell?), arguably the best ever for serve-and-volley
Johansson, Joachim - Denton of the aughts

As you may have noticed we have a new addition this time: Gilles Muller. Yes, that Muller, the same Luxembourger who has never been ranked higher than #34 in the world. And we currently have only a handful of matches with known URS numbers for him. So how does one justify the inclusion of such an obscure journeyman? This is why:

2016 Newport SF W Young - 73.3% (33/45), 18 aces, 3 DFs [25% (18/72), 0 aces, 3 DFs]
2015 AO 3R W Isner - 47.4% (46/97), 23 aces, 3 DFs [52.2% (59/113), 30 aces, 2 DFs]
2013 Marseille QF L Tursunov - 45.3% (39/86), 27 aces, 5 DFs [27.5% (28/102), 10 aces, 3 DFs]
2017 Atlanta SF L Isner - 37.7% (23/61), 8 aces, 4 DFs [53.7% (29/54), 15 aces, 5 DFs]

(Go here for a primer on how to interpret these %s.)

That 73.3% is easily the highest ratio of unreturned serves by any player in our database, and in fact the only one we were able to confirm that exceeded 70%. (The only two other possible cases thus far: Karlovic winning at least 66.7% of freebies on serve vs. Bracciali in the first round of '05 Wimbledon, and Llodra of all people scoring 71% against Isner in the first set of their 2nd-rounder at '12 Paris. Alas we've never been able to fill in the gaps.) Of course we're talking a very small sample size, and I suspect Muller is in fact a borderline GSOAT candidate a la Ashe, Noah, Forget, Rosset, Ljubicic, Tsonga and Kyrgios, but when you look at the number of aces per match (which I admit isn't a perfect parameter) Muller does come out slightly ahead of these guys. And I like to give unsung plebeians their due, so I say Muller deserves extra credit for that 70+% game alone.

And you may have seen that Rusedski has now overtaken Federer who in turn has moved past Smith. Going forward I'm going to take a radical approach that says any received wisdom is more false than true and unless we come across contrary evidence we rank these candidates according to the data we do have. So Stich now sits above Tanner despite the latter's more formidable reputation, and while Smith's serve may well be better than Fed's when equalized for conditions Stan's underwhelming stats so far place him at the very bottom of the ladder. I have more or less Greg's complete known stats and once I confirm his # of unreturned serves and total service points in the '97 USO final I'll go ahead and post his numbers as well.

Some names we're trying to decide whether to add or drop (year of birth in parentheses):

Bob Falkenburg (1926)
Mike Sangster (1940)
Colin Dibley (1944)
John Feaver (1952)
Victor Amaya (1954)

As I warned last time Gerald Patterson (1895) has now been eliminated. Speak up if you find this turn of events outrageous! And of course if you got other ideas or suggestions. As always stats, press reports and/or firsthand accounts are a great way to bolster your case.

And now some light housekeeping:

Moose Malloy said:
Like I said before, I only do that in this thread. I did change the language to return errors instead of unreturned serves at some point.
I certainly didn't expect anyone to care about that stat or start archiving my work, esp all these years later(the Santana thread is from 2011)
Seemed like krosero was the only one who even read what I posted, so I rarely post any stats threads anymore(still do stats though)
most posters here seemed to just care about goat debates and #1 for 1964, 1977 etc...

Moose, FYI an e-pal asked me yesterday to thank you for your stats and also let it be known that he drops by this forum for your and other diligent posters' work as tennis is not one of those sports where this kind of info is readily available. And I doubt he's the only lurker that feels the same way, so do feel free to post any stats that you think people might like to know about. It's not just moi and krosero who are paying attention.

Update #1 on 8/29/17: added the '17 Atlanta SFs stats for Muller.

krosero · Sep 10, 2016

NonP said:
I had the #s for the Gonzales match and also Laver's vs. Fraser, but since they weren't complete I decided against posting them. The other ones I indeed didn't have. Grazie for bringing them to our attention.

It's quite likely those 30 "aces" by Vines are in fact all of his unreturned serves in that match, as 30 clean aces in such a short 3-setter would be an exceptional # even now. Let me know if you ever confirm it or see it contradicted in another report, otherwise we'll go with 30 out of 79 for Vines. Do you have Bunny's total in that match, BTW?

P.S. Moose got 33 and 29 unreturned serves for Santana and Ralston respectively in their '66 Wimby final. Not sure how/where you got 39 and 35.

And thought I'd point out you got the year wrong ('48 rather than '49) in your OP about the Gonzales match. Might wanna go back and correct it.

You're welcome.

Good catch, corrected. Don't have Austin's aces, only know that he won 37 of 81 service points (45.7%) and was broken 7 times. Vines won 52 of 79 service points (65.8%) and was broken once.

skaj · Feb 19, 2017

women:

1.Serena
2.Stosur
3.Davenport
4.Navratilova
5.Venus
6.Lisicki
7.Schultz-McCarthy
8.Court
9.Hradecka
10.Mauresmo
11.Grönefeld
12.Petrova
13.Sharapova(pre shoulder surgery)
14.Graf
15.Keys
16.Kvitova
17.Ivanovic(up to 2008.)
18.Görges
19.Novotna
20.Vandeweghe

who did I forget?

NLBwell · Feb 19, 2017

Yes, it's easy to forget that Ivanovic had one of the biggest serves on the tour for a while. Amazing that it could go that badly after that.

Fedfan34 · Feb 20, 2017

If this is a top five list, this is easy:
Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, and Sampras
If we get into top ten, it goes something like:
Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, and Sampras

Not sure about 9 and 10.

Moose Malloy · Apr 11, 2017

@NonP I finally took stats on the Tanner Vilas AO final
Here are the unreturned serve rates:

Tanner
39/84: 46%
1st serve: 30/37: 81%
2nd serve: 9/47: 19%

Vilas
22/86: 25.5%
1st serve: 16/51: 31%
2nd serve: 6/35: 17%

I also took stats on Feds match vs Bozoljac at 2010 Wimbledon(I recall you saying it was his best serving year, ace wise?)

Federer
59/135: 43.7%
1st serve: 47/94: 50%
2nd serve: 12/41: 29%

Bozoljac
62/140: 44.28%
1st serve: 53/90: 59%
2nd serve: 9/50: 18%

boredone3456 · Apr 11, 2017

skaj said:
women:

1.Serena
2.Stosur
3.Davenport
4.Navratilova
5.Venus
6.Lisicki
7.Schultz-McCarthy
8.Court
9.Hradecka
10.Mauresmo
11.Grönefeld
12.Petrova
13.Sharapova(pre shoulder surgery)
14.Graf
15.Keys
16.Kvitova
17.Ivanovic(up to 2008.)
18.Görges
19.Novotna
20.Vandeweghe

who did I forget?

I think the top 5 is solid, not sure I would put Stosur #2 personally although her kick serve is underrated by many. I'd probably remove a few of those ladies, Vandeweghe & Gorges come to mind, and consider Henin. For her size, Henin could blast the serve and had decent serve placement as well. I'd probably drop folks like Lisicki and Brenda down a few spots, they had power but consistency is a major issue in both of their serves, especially for Lisicki.

skaj · Apr 12, 2017

boredone3456 said:
I think the top 5 is solid, not sure I would put Stosur #2 personally although her kick serve is underrated by many. I'd probably remove a few of those ladies, Vandeweghe & Gorges come to mind, and consider Henin. For her size, Henin could blast the serve and had decent serve placement as well. I'd probably drop folks like Lisicki and Brenda down a few spots, they had power but consistency is a major issue in both of their serves, especially for Lisicki.

speed of henin's serve was impressive for her height, fine placement too I agree(same goes for Schiavone and Mattek-Sands), but it was not too consistent, especially the second serve, she risked too much... I wouldn't put her among the best servers. I think it was just not a big weapon, which was the case for the other girls I mentioned. she had all the other weapons though

NonP · Jul 3, 2017

K you impatient schmucks, here are all the Krajicek matches in my unreturned-serve collection. (I've also updated my Stich list if you're interested.) As usual I'm including his opponent's stats in brackets and also links to more extensive box scores where available:

1997 WIM 1R W Craca - 59.3% (48/81), 19 aces, 1 DF [26.2% (28/107), 1 ace, 4 DFs]
1997 WIM 3R W Rikl - 58.0% (47/81), 23 aces, 2 DFs [31.1% (32/103), 4 aces, 3 DFs]
1996 WIM 1R W Sanchez - 57.8% (48/83), 23 aces, 5 DFs [27.8% (27/97), 0 ace, 1 DF]
1996 WIM QF W Sampras - 53.0% (62?/117), 29 aces, 5 DFs [45% (45/100), 8 aces, 8 DFs]
1998 Wim SF L Ivanisevic - 52.4% (100/191), 42 aces, 5 DFs [40.7% (81/199), 28 aces, 16 DFs]
1997 WIM 2R W Pavel - 52.3% (69/132), 32 aces, 3 DFs [39.0% (62/159), 2 aces, 9 DFs]
1998 Stuttgart SF W Sampras - 51.5% (52/101), 16 aces, 4 DFs [38% (38/100), 17 aces, 6 DFs]
1996 WIM 4R W Stich - 49.0% (48/98), 13 aces, 7 DFs [34.6% (36?/104), 9 aces, 7 DFs]
1997 WIM 4R L Henman - 46.5% (67/144), 24 aces, 3 DFs [42.4% (64/151), 7 aces, 5 DFs]
1996 WIM F W Washington - 46.5% (33/71), 14 aces, 3 DFs [23.9% (21/88), 5 aces, 2 DFs]
1999 USO QF L Kafelnikov - 46.1% (82/178), 48 aces, 13 DFs [34.2% (54/158), 10 aces, 5 DFs]
1996 WIM 3R W Steven - 43.7% (59/135), 33 aces, 6 DFs [28.5% (43/151), 2 aces, 9 DFs]
1996 WIM SF W Stoltenberg - 43.2% (38/88), 15 aces, 3 DFs [27.8% (25/90), 5 aces, 12 DFs]
2000 USO 3R W Henman - 40.8% (64/157), 25 aces, 7 DFs [27.4% (45/164), 4 aces, 17 DFs]
1994 DC QF W Sampras - 34.4% (44/128), 16 aces, 8 DFs [29.3% (43/147), 9 aces, 7 DFs]
1995 New Haven F L Agassi - 31.1% (32/103), 19 aces, 7 DFs [33.0% (30/91), 8 aces, 3 DFs]

As I told @abmk earlier there's a slight discrepancy between the official tally and @slice serve ace's: in the shocking upset of Sampras at '96 Wimby the latter's got 62 unreturned serves for Richard while the AEC came up with 61. (slice or someone else I can't recall also has 36 URS's for Mike vs. Richard, but the official box score lists 37. I also couldn't verify Pete's ace total in the Stuttgart match - 17 per the ATP but 15 in Voo de Mar's tally.) Other than that these numbers should be pretty damn accurate.

And again see how consistently excellent these #s are. Granted many of the matches were on grass, but regardless of the surface this is the kind of reliability that even the likes of Ivanisevic, Arthurs and Karlovic would be proud of. If there was any doubt about Krajicek's standing among the GSOATs this list should dispel it completely.

Limpinhitter · Jul 3, 2017

I think Ivan Lendl's serve should find a place on the all time list, especially in his lower toss days.

Moose Malloy · Jul 4, 2017

@NonP
Here are a few recent matches for Federer.

Stuttgart
Fed 38/94 40.4%
Haas 38/107 35.5%

Halle
Fed 21/77 27.2%
Khachanov 20/69 29%

Also the commentators said that 60% of Isner's serves were unreturned during his 2nd set tiebreak with Fritz today.

NonP · Jul 4, 2017

skaj said:
women:

1.Serena
2.Stosur
3.Davenport
4.Navratilova
5.Venus
6.Lisicki
7.Schultz-McCarthy
8.Court
9.Hradecka
10.Mauresmo
11.Grönefeld
12.Petrova
13.Sharapova(pre shoulder surgery)
14.Graf
15.Keys
16.Kvitova
17.Ivanovic(up to 2008.)
18.Görges
19.Novotna
20.Vandeweghe

who did I forget?

You know, this thread wasn't supposed to be about men only and these WTA lists are very much welcome. I'd start devising one of my own but since I pay very little attention to women's tennis these days I'm reluctant to pontificate on this one. So I'll just add I second @boredone3456 in questioning such a high ranking for Stosur while appreciating her inclusion as well.

Moose Malloy said:
@NonP I finally took stats on the Tanner Vilas AO final
Here are the unreturned serve rates:

Tanner
39/84: 46%
1st serve: 30/37: 81%
2nd serve: 9/47: 19%

Vilas
22/86: 25.5%
1st serve: 16/51: 31%
2nd serve: 6/35: 17%

I also took stats on Feds match vs Bozoljac at 2010 Wimbledon(I recall you saying it was his best serving year, ace wise?)

Federer
59/135: 43.7%
1st serve: 47/94: 50%
2nd serve: 12/41: 29%

Bozoljac
62/140: 44.28%
1st serve: 53/90: 59%
2nd serve: 9/50: 18%

Moose Malloy said:
@NonP
Here are a few recent matches for Federer.

Stuttgart
Fed 38/94 40.4%
Haas 38/107 35.5%

Halle
Fed 21/77 27.2%
Khachanov 20/69 29%

Also the commentators said that 60% of Isner's serves were unreturned during his 2nd set tiebreak with Fritz today.

Thanks Moose. Keep 'em coming.

Guess you didn't track Isner's full match today?

Limpinhitter said:
I think Ivan Lendl's serve should find a place on the all time list, especially in his lower toss days.

As you may recall I've decided that Lendl was/is more or less on par with the likes of Ashe, Forget and Tsonga - almost there but not quite, cuz both my eyes and stats tell me so. You dare to question my final verdict?

Moose Malloy · Jul 4, 2017

No way to track it, ESPN jumps around during early round matches. Plus I think I'm done doing stats on his matches, I don't really enjoy watching him play. Guess the Wimbledon website doesn't have more info. But someone must be tracking that stat for the commentators to mention it.

Limpinhitter · Jul 5, 2017

skaj said:
women:

1.Serena
2.Stosur
3.Davenport
4.Navratilova
5.Venus
6.Lisicki
7.Schultz-McCarthy
8.Court
9.Hradecka
10.Mauresmo
11.Grönefeld
12.Petrova
13.Sharapova(pre shoulder surgery)
14.Graf
15.Keys
16.Kvitova
17.Ivanovic(up to 2008.)
18.Görges
19.Novotna
20.Vandeweghe

who did I forget?

Virginia Wade?

Limpinhitter · Jul 5, 2017

Moose Malloy said:
No way to track it, ESPN jumps around during early round matches. Plus I think I'm done doing stats on his matches, I don't really enjoy watching him play. Guess the Wimbledon website doesn't have more info. But someone must be tracking that stat for the commentators to mention it.

FYI, www.ESPN.com/watch online allows you to pick the court you want to watch.

tom williams · Jul 5, 2017

NonP said:
I've noticed that among the zillion GOAT threads in this forum there isn't a single comprehensive one ranking the greatest serves ever (for real), and since the serve is the shot least affected by outside variables (including racquets and strings) I've decided to create a new thread myself. Here's my (always) preliminary ranking:

Ivanisevic

Karlovic

Sampras

Gonzales

Krajicek

Arthurs

Roddick

Newcombe

Isner

Becker

Philippoussis

Zivojinovic

McEnroe

Raonic

Curren

Tanner

Stich

Smith

Federer

Rusedski

The Honorary Hall of Fame (by order of birth only):

McLoughlin, Maurice - perhaps the first distinguished cannonball serve in tennis history

Tilden - yet another storied power serve, which he bolstered with spin and accuracy

Doeg, John - Ivanisevic to Vines' Sampras, a southpaw whose serve was considered one of the two or three greatest ever (along with Vines') in his heyday

Stoefen, Lester - one of the first giants with a feared high-rise rocket launcher

Vines - by many accounts, the best and fastest serve of the pre-WWII era

Kramer - in addition to a formidable first delivery, perhaps the best second serve before Newcombe and Sampras

Denton - his unusual service motion notwithstanding, an ace dispenser that could bring enormous heat

Edberg - for his iconic kicker (any logo ring a bell?), arguably the best ever for serve-and-volley

Johansson, Joachim - Denton of the aughts

Now a couple of things:

1) The purpose of this thread is to rank the serve as a pure stand-alone shot mostly free of outside factors. That is, McEnroe's serve had top-notch disguise, variety and placement and, as @pc1 pointed out, his great hook in the ad court won him many easy points, but would his serve be as effective for a non-S&Ver? That's an important question to ask, whether the player's serve would suit all playing styles. (I suppose we could create two separate rankings--one for net rushers and the other for baseliners--but that would make this discussion even more hopeless than it already is.) By the same token, Edberg and Rafter had great kick serves that they could follow up with their tried-and-true forays to the net, but I think we can agree that most players would pick Goran's or Karlovic's serve over that of these S&V masters.

Similarly, Goran and Stich were headcases and as a result their whole game suffered on occasion, but not when they kept their head together. On the other hand Rusedski often had trouble getting a high 1st-serve % without sacrificing pace and power, which tells me the problem was more technical than mental. In short my ranking is based on serves as opposed to service games, or rather I'm trying to rank serves as stand-alone shots as opposed to servers as a whole package, even though I don't discount the mental aspect entirely.

I've written many a dissertation on these topics and the best way to get acquainted would be to read through the entire thread as it contains many valuable contributions from other posters, but since I know that's not very realistic for most here are a few links for you to explore (start with the 1st as long as you can forgive my somewhat intemperate tone which gets better over time): the steady increases in just about every major service stat (1st-serve %, % of service games won, etc.) among the top players since the '90s and the reasons behind them, why we should be wary of direct comparisons of service (and return) stats between the recent decades as a result, the relationship between service and return games, the useful if obscure metric of unreturned serves (that is, those that the returner fails to put back in play), and of course some of the GSOAT rankings themselves.

2) Let's limit this list to the best of the best. Put more bluntly, we can talk about good-but-not-quite-GOAT servers like Ashe and Kyrgios on another thread.

3) Given the lack of sufficient visual evidence and the different rules they had to serve under (like keeping one foot on the ground), I think it all but impossible to rank such old-timers as Tilden, Vines and Kramer with a fair degree of certainty. And players like Johansson had too brief a career for us to make valid comparisons between him and their more fortunate peers. Hence these guys' honorary mentions.

Now it's your turn to sound off and tell us where these and other servers should rank. Just try to give some reasoning behind your rankings especially of the pre-1980s candidates. Much as I appreciate your input I can't take anyone's word on faith. So instead of just stating the obvious like "X could crank it up" or "Y had a great 2nd serve," say something more helpful like this (hat tip to @encyclopedia): "[Noah] threw the ball fairly far forward (and later in his career way to the right)....this gave him a beautiful lean [motion], and allowed him to hit through the ball for absolutely blinding pace. I believe his fastest serves may have been up there with a Roddick/Rusedski....but it also made his serves fairly low margin...even being 6'4. That, along with an occasional tendency to drop his head made his flat serve percentage not so good as the best." You get the drift.

hoodjem said:
Here's mine:

1. Sampras
2. Ivanisevic
3. P. Gonzales
4. Roddick
5. Krajicek
6. Stich
7. Tanner
8. Newcombe
9. Tilden
10. Curren
11. Edberg
12. Federer
13. McEnroe
14. Becker
15. Dibley
16. Karlovic
17. Rusedski
18. Kramer
19. Fraser
20. Denton
21. Noah
22. Borg
23. D. Pate
24. S. Smith

tom williams · Jul 5, 2017

hoodjem said:
Here's mine:

1. Sampras
2. Ivanisevic
3. P. Gonzales
4. Roddick
5. Krajicek
6. Stich
7. Tanner
8. Newcombe
9. Tilden
10. Curren
11. Edberg
12. Federer
13. McEnroe
14. Becker
15. Dibley
16. Karlovic
17. Rusedski
18. Kramer
19. Fraser
20. Denton
21. Noah
22. Borg
23. D. Pate
24. S. Smith

Wheres Lew Hoad the late Art Larsen said a few years ago that Lew Hoads serve was more power full than Roddicks

NonP · Jul 6, 2017

Moose Malloy said:
No way to track it, ESPN jumps around during early round matches. Plus I think I'm done doing stats on his matches, I don't really enjoy watching him play. Guess the Wimbledon website doesn't have more info. But someone must be tracking that stat for the commentators to mention it.

Limpinhitter said:
FYI, www.ESPN.com/watch online allows you to pick the court you want to watch.

Limpin beat me to it.

But I understand your being meh about Isner. There've been a few Isner matches I did enjoy (his upset of Roddick at the '09 USO, for one), but he definitely wouldn't be among my top choices to watch.

tom williams said:
Wheres Lew Hoad the late Art Larsen said a few years ago that Lew Hoads serve was more power full than Roddicks

First off, rubbish. There are a few areas where Roddick has been bested but power ain't one of 'em. Check out his serve speeds at 2004 Wimbledon for a few examples.

Second, let's match noise for noise and consider Vines' more measured take from his fine book Tennis: in his glowing (if rambling) chapter on Hoad he approvingly quotes Larsen's claim that Hoad's delivery was swifter than Gonzales', but he then adds that Lew's 2nd serve was "not quite up to Pancho's kicker." Roddick's own OTOH belongs to the upper echelon of distinguished 2nd serves in history.

Third, power is highly overrated at the pro level, especially among the very greatest servers who have been nominated here. The fact that you cited power alone as your case for Hoad does not speak well of your understanding of the game.

And last but not least, if you truly cared to learn about the game rather than stick up for your pin-up boy you would've noticed in that very post of mine you quoted why I've decided against ranking most of the old-timers in favor of giving them honorary mentions. If you want to be taken seriously try to offer an actual argument of your own.

NickJ · Jul 6, 2017

Honourable mention for Mike Sangster?? Had an unofficial recorded serve of 154mph back in the 60's (I think).
I remember being given a copy of his book 'Cannonball Tennis' !! Read it cover to cover numerous times but my best recorded (which was when I was in my 20's, and indoor) was 126mph.

Limpinhitter · Jul 6, 2017

NonP said:
Limpin beat me to it. But I understand your being meh about Isner. There've been a few Isner matches I did enjoy (his upset of Roddick at the '09 USO, for one), but he definitely wouldn't be among my top choices to watch.

First off, rubbish. There are a few areas where Roddick has been bested but power ain't one of 'em. Check out his serve speeds at 2004 Wimbledon for a few examples.

Second, let's match noise for noise and consider Vines' more measured take from his fine book Tennis: in his glowing (if rambling) chapter on Hoad he approvingly quotes Larsen's claim that Hoad's delivery was swifter than Gonzales', but he then adds that Lew's 2nd serve was "not quite up to Pancho's kicker." Roddick's own OTOH belongs to the upper echelon of distinguished 2nd serves in history.

Third, power is highly overrated at the pro level, especially among the very greatest servers who have been nominated here. The fact that you cited power alone as your case for Hoad does not speak well of your understanding of the game.

And last but not least, if you truly cared to learn about the game rather than stick up for your pin-up boy you would've noticed in that very post of mine you quoted why I've decided against ranking most of the old-timers in favor of giving them honorary mentions. If you want to be taken seriously try to offer an actual argument of your own.

In my view, Lew Hoad and Ellsworth Vines had greater serves than many if not most on your list. Your justification for omitting Hoad, that Gonzalez had a greater second serve, if extended to its logical conclusion, would require the removal of everyone else on your list except for Sampras.

abmk · Jul 12, 2017

Another match stat for the collection, @NonP

abmk · Jul 12, 2017

Raonic had 96 service points, Federer 89.

The question is if unreturned serves above includes aces or not ?

Edit : federer won 35/96 return points.

If unreturned serves did not include aces, that'd mean Raonic would have 47 serves not returned by federer. which would leave only 14 points won by raonic on serve other than through serves not returned. Highly unlikely, given federer won 35.

So, that means unreturned serves includes aces.

which would have federer winning 35 of the 60 points on Raonic's serve when he put the ball back into play, which seems fine.

So %s :

Raonic : 36/96 = 37.5%
Federer : 34/89 = 38.2%

@NonP : You had Raonic at 25% serves unreturned in the Wim 16 final, correct ? But he was broken only once there. He was broken thrice here.

Dan Lobb · Jul 12, 2017

NonP said:
Limpin beat me to it. But I understand your being meh about Isner. There've been a few Isner matches I did enjoy (his upset of Roddick at the '09 USO, for one), but he definitely wouldn't be among my top choices to watch.

First off, rubbish. There are a few areas where Roddick has been bested but power ain't one of 'em. Check out his serve speeds at 2004 Wimbledon for a few examples.

Second, let's match noise for noise and consider Vines' more measured take from his fine book Tennis: in his glowing (if rambling) chapter on Hoad he approvingly quotes Larsen's claim that Hoad's delivery was swifter than Gonzales', but he then adds that Lew's 2nd serve was "not quite up to Pancho's kicker." Roddick's own OTOH belongs to the upper echelon of distinguished 2nd serves in history.

Third, power is highly overrated at the pro level, especially among the very greatest servers who have been nominated here. The fact that you cited power alone as your case for Hoad does not speak well of your understanding of the game.

And last but not least, if you truly cared to learn about the game rather than stick up for your pin-up boy you would've noticed in that very post of mine you quoted why I've decided against ranking most of the old-timers in favor of giving them honorary mentions. If you want to be taken seriously try to offer an actual argument of your own.

Gonzales, by logical extension, should have had little trouble with Hoad's second serve, but that was clearly not the case.
Gonzales simply said that he had trouble with Hoad's unpredictable serve, which used heavy spins in all directions...you need enormous wrist strength to manage that.

Shaolin · Jul 12, 2017

NonP said:
OK, time for a new update. See if you can locate the changes in our main ranking:

Ivanisevic

Karlovic

Sampras

Gonzales

Krajicek

Arthurs

Roddick

Newcombe

Isner

Becker

Philippoussis

Zivojinovic

McEnroe

Raonic

Curren

Stich

Tanner

Rusedski

Federer

Muller

Smith

The Honorary Hall of Fame remains intact (by order of birth as usual):

McLoughlin, Maurice - perhaps the first distinguished cannonball serve in tennis history

Tilden - yet another storied power serve, which he bolstered with spin and accuracy

Doeg, John - Ivanisevic to Vines' Sampras, a southpaw whose serve was considered one of the two or three greatest ever (along with Vines') in his heyday

Stoefen, Lester - one of the first giants with a feared high-rise rocket launcher

Vines - by many accounts, the best and fastest serve of the pre-WWII era

Kramer - in addition to a formidable first delivery, perhaps the best second serve before Newcombe and Sampras

Denton, Steve - his unusual service motion notwithstanding, an ace dispenser that could bring enormous heat

Edberg - for his iconic kicker (any logo ring a bell?), arguably the best ever for serve-and-volley

Johansson, Joachim - Denton of the aughts

As you may have noticed we have a new addition this time: Gilles Muller. Yes, that Muller, the same Luxembourger who has never been ranked higher than #34 in the world. And we currently have only three matches in which we know how many of his serves were unreturned. So how does one justify the inclusion of such an obscure journeyman? This is why:

2016 Newport SF W Young - 73.3% (33/45), 18 aces, 3 DFs [25% (18/72), 0 aces, 3 DFs]
2015 AO 3R W Isner - 47.4% (46/97), 23 aces, 3 DFs [52.2% (59/113), 30 aces, 2 DFs]
2013 Marseille QF L Tursunov - 45.3% (39/86), 27 aces, 5 DFs [27.5% (28/102), 10 aces, 3 DFs]

(Go here for a primer on how to interpret these %s.)

That 73.3% is easily the highest ratio of unreturned serves by any player in our database, and in fact the only one we were able to confirm that exceeded 70%. (The only two other possible cases thus far: Karlovic winning at least 66.7% of freebies on serve vs. Bracciali in the first round of '05 Wimbledon, and Llodra of all people scoring 71% against Isner in the first set of their 2nd-rounder at '12 Paris. Alas we've never been able to fill in the gaps.) Of course we're talking a very small sample size, and I suspect Muller is in fact a borderline GSOAT candidate a la Ashe, Noah, Forget, Rosset, Ljubicic, Tsonga and Kyrgios, but when you look at the number of aces per match (which I admit isn't a perfect parameter) Muller does come out slightly ahead of these guys. And I like to give unsung plebeians their due, so I say Muller deserves extra credit for that 70+% game alone. If you got a problem with that, tough.

And you may have seen that Rusedski has now overtaken Federer who in turn has moved past Smith. Going forward I'm going to take a radical approach that says any received wisdom is more false than true and unless we come across contrary evidence we rank these candidates according to the data we do have. So Stich now sits above Tanner despite the latter's more formidable reputation, and while Smith's serve may well be better than Fed's when equalized for conditions Stan's underwhelming stats so far place him at the very bottom of the ladder. I have more or less Greg's complete known stats and once I confirm his # of unreturned serves and total service points in the '97 USO final I'll go ahead and post his numbers as well.

Some names we're trying to decide whether to add or drop (year of birth in parentheses):

Bob Falkenburg (1926)

Mike Sangster (1940)

Colin Dibley (1944)

John Feaver (1952)

Victor Amaya (1954)

As I warned last time Gerald Patterson (1895) has now been eliminated. Speak up if you find this turn of events outrageous! And of course if you got other ideas or suggestions. As always stats, press reports and/or firsthand accounts are a great way to bolster your case.

And now some light housekeeping:

Moose, FYI an e-pal asked me yesterday to say thanks for your stats and also let it be known that he drops by this forum for your and other posters' stat work as tennis is not one of those sports where this kind of info is readily available. And I doubt he's the only lurker that feels the same way, so do feel free to post any stats that you think people might like to know about. It's not just moi and krosero who are paying attention.

Newcombe? Interesting.

Tshooter · Jul 12, 2017

Shaolin said:
Have you seen Arthurs play? ..

I think Hewitt used to say Arthur's had the toughest serve for him to return.

Shaolin · Jul 12, 2017

Tshooter said:
I think Hewitt used to say Arthur's had the toughest serve for him to return.

Yeah the Arthurs serve was nasty af.

NonP · Jul 12, 2017

NickJ said:
Honourable mention for Mike Sangster?? Had an unofficial recorded serve of 154mph back in the 60's (I think).
I remember being given a copy of his book 'Cannonball Tennis' !! Read it cover to cover numerous times but my best recorded (which was when I was in my 20's, and indoor) was 126mph.

Sangster's name has come up several times in this thread and as you may have noticed he's been one of our to-add-or-not candidates for some time now. That said his (unofficial) record alone isn't enough to merit his inclusion. For better or worse we've got fairly high standards here. More stats and respectable firsthand observations would be welcome.

Limpinhitter said:
In my view, Lew Hoad and Ellsworth Vines had greater serves than many if not most on your list. Your justification for omitting Hoad, that Gonzalez had a greater second serve, if extended to its logical conclusion, would require the removal of everyone else on your list except for Sampras.

FYI Vines is already in the Honorary HoF. I've decided to give most of the old-timers honorary mentions only due to lack of enough visual/statistical evidence, though Elly is actually the one guy I've strongly considered giving a numerical ranking (mostly thanks to research by krosero).

And Gonzales is on the list not only thanks to his legendary reputation but also because none other than Vic Braden concluded in his book Tennis 2000 (as good ol' Data once reminded us) that he was confident Pancho would be able to serve in the 140-ish mph range today. That kind of rigorous analysis is a far cry from the above poster's half-baked claim (or his quoting of Larsen's) that Hoad's serve was even more powerful than Gorgo's, especially when in an actual '59 serving contest Pancho came out slightly ahead, and that based on this wishing thinking alone his pin-up boy deserves a place among the ATG servers.

If he and his ilk were actually interested in discussion I'd be more sympathetic, but they seem to congregate here for the sole purpose of hyping up their hero, which is not only annoying as hell but a waste of everyone else's time. Of course fanboys are dime a dozen especially in the General Pro madhouse, but here we've got a couple of rabid Vilas seguidores who seem to have nothing better to do than agitating for their idol's imaginary #1 ranking in '77, not to mention the geezers who are presumably much older and should know better.

Speaking of whom....

Dan Lobb said:
Gonzales, by logical extension, should have had little trouble with Hoad's second serve, but that was clearly not the case.
Gonzales simply said that he had trouble with Hoad's unpredictable serve, which used heavy spins in all directions...you need enormous wrist strength to manage that.

Fanboy dullsville as usual. There have been literally dozens if not hundreds of servers who "used heavy spins in all directions" throughout tennis history. You and most of your fellow old farts have not shown the slightest hint of technical acumen (I still remember your comical description of Sampras of all people as a mediocre athlete) in all of your 132593454 posts combined. Just stick to what you do best and focus on historical trivia.

And you didn't bother to read what you quoted, again. If you wanna have a real discussion you should start paying more attention to what others actually say.

abmk said:
If unreturned serves did not include aces, that'd mean Raonic would have 47 serves not returned by federer. which would leave only 14 points won by raonic on serve other than through serves not returned. Highly unlikely, given federer won 35.

Make that impossible. The official statistician gave Raonic 16 FH/BH "rally" winners (including volleys), that is > 14. 16 + 11 aces + 2 service winners gives him the total tally of 29.

Thanks for the #s anyway. Did they flash that graphic after the other QFs yesterday?

@NonP : You had Raonic at 25% serves unreturned in the Wim 16 final, correct ? But he was broken only once there. He was broken thrice here.

Yeah. But it goes without saying, better return doesn't necessarily mean better return game.

(Reportedly Andy was slightly injured, too.)

BTW that wasn't a fluke by Murray. I'm guessing you've seen this already but just in case:

NonP said:
Speaking of who Kyrgios is another one we should keep our eye on. Take a gander at these #s from last year's AO [2016] (with another hat tip to Voo):

2015 AO 2R W Karlovic - 47.9% (57/119), 25 aces, 4 DFs [39 aces, 6 DFs]
2015 AO 3R W Jaziri - 49.5% (50/101), 25 aces, 2 DFs [6 aces, 2 DFs]
2015 AO 4R W Seppi - 36.9% (69/187), 25 aces, 7 DFs [23 aces, 4 DFs]
2015 AO QF L Murray - 22.7% (25/110), 9 aces, 3 DFs [36.8% (32/87), 13 aces, 1 DF]

(BTW check out that returning from Murray. The guy really seems an awfully tough one to ace.]

Also Raonic did better in last year's SF, going 69/167 or 41.3% (Fed himself managed 58/160 or 36.3%).

Shaolin said:
Newcombe? Interesting.

And hardly controversial. Newk by all accounts was the Sampras/Becker of his day. Plus he's got several impressive feats of his own, having 39.2% of his serves unreturned against Kodes (one of the best returners back then) in the '73 USO final and 38.5% against Smith in the '71 Wimby final. Adjusting for conditions those #s would roughly translate to high-40s/low 50s today, which any player would gladly take in a major final.

NickJ · Jul 13, 2017

NonP said:
For better or worse we've got fairly high standards here.

'We' or you? I think i did add the words 'honourable mention' not like I said he had the BEST serve ever, or was better than anyone else. Try reading posts before you get up on your very high horse and spout rubbish.
I didn't realise you had put in charge of all that is tennis related. Sounds like you've crawled up very much inside your own bottom looking down on all who you'd sh1t on without prejudice. 'I know more than you so that makes me the king of all things tennis . . . '

And what else did you say, I really can't be bothered to copy & paste through all your cr4p. Something about stats & firsthand observations? Mike Sangster died some years ago, would be difficult to observe anything now.

You prat.

abmk · Jul 13, 2017

NonP said:
Make that impossible. The official statistician gave Raonic 16 FH/BH "rally" winners (including volleys), that is > 14. 16 + 11 aces + 2 service winners gives him the total tally of 29.

Thanks for the #s anyway. Did they flash that graphic after the other QFs yesterday?

got it from another forum when I was googling something else.

some of those winners from fh/bh wing could be on the return games as well (actually are), not just on service games for Raonic. So you can't still disprove it mathematically.

NonP said:
Yeah. But it goes without saying, better return doesn't necessarily mean better return game. (Reportedly Andy was slightly injured, too.)

BTW that wasn't a fluke by Murray. I'm guessing you've seen this already but just in case:

yeah, but 25% unreturned serves and just one break of Raobot by Murray in 3 sets is unusual.

Murray injured ? today ? yes.
wim 16 final ? eh, what ?

NonP said:
Also Raonic did better in last year's SF, going 69/167 or 41.3% (Fed himself managed 58/160 or 36.3%).

expected given fed's condition/form last year.

do you have the stats for their 14 encounter ?

NonP · Jul 13, 2017

BTW forgot to add I'm feeling better about adding Muller to my list after his latest Wimby run. Granted his ace totals fluctuated (from only 8 against Fucsovics in 1R to a whopping 45 vs. Rosol in 2R) and were nowhere near Goran's or Ivo's averages in '01 and '15 respectively, but results speak louder than numbers and his serve was no doubt a big ingredient of his success. Congrats to the Luxembourgian on his career-best achievement.

NickJ said:
'We' or you? I think i did add the words 'honourable mention' not like I said he had the BEST serve ever, or was better than anyone else. Try reading posts before you get up on your very high horse and spout rubbish.
I didn't realise you had put in charge of all that is tennis related. Sounds like you've crawled up very much inside your own bottom looking down on all who you'd sh1t on without prejudice. 'I know more than you so that makes me the king of all things tennis . . . '

And what else did you say, I really can't be bothered to copy & paste through all your cr4p. Something about stats & firsthand observations? Mike Sangster died some years ago, would be difficult to observe anything now.

You prat.

Rather touchy type, aren't you? Look, you read way more into my last post than you should have. FYI Sangster's supposed record has been mentioned before which is why he remains under consideration to begin with, and I'm actually glad that we're still talking about guys like him rather than the usual suspects only. It's just that I tend to work very slowly before I add or remove any names, and if you go back you'll see that I'm something of a stat guy and try to balance hard numbers and impressions for my rankings. If there's one thing I've learned from this thread it's that human observations can be rather unreliable.

Anyway I can see how my last post might have come across as a stuck-up diss to a newcomer like you. Wasn't my intention. Let's bury this and move on.

abmk said:
got it from another forum when I was googling something else.

some of those winners from fh/bh wing could be on the return games as well (actually are), not just on service games for Raonic. So you can't still disprove it mathematically.

Gotcha. Not sure they'd include those as "rally" winners, but you could be right. Even so we'd be talking 4-5 return winners tops from Milos, which leaves an awfully small window for him here.

yeah, but 25% unreturned serves and just one break of Raobot by Murray in 3 sets is unusual.

I'd guess so myself. Now that you mention it I might do some kind of analysis when I get a chance.

Murray injured ? today ? yes.
wim 16 final ? eh, what ?

Didn't mean to say Murray was injured last year. Just wanted to share the #s.

do you have the stats for their 14 encounter ?

40% (32/80) for Fed, 42.9% (36/84) for Milos.

(BTW my Fed URS list could really use a new update, but it seems that I come across new Fed #s every other week or so. Maybe I'll finally go ahead when my total hits 100.)

P.S. FYI the Wimbledon site annoyingly doesn't show the latest stats on the player's profile page. Muller hit 8 aces against Fucsovics, not 6. Did get his total right vs. Rosol.

NickJ · Jul 13, 2017

My apologies.

mhkeuns · Jul 13, 2017

I wonder who owns the title of owning the greatest second serve. IIRC, Sampras' second serves were just as effective as his first serves.

Dan Lobb · Jul 13, 2017

NonP said:
Sangster's name has come up several times in this thread and as you may have noticed he's been one of our to-add-or-not candidates for some time now. That said his (unofficial) record alone isn't enough to merit his inclusion. For better or worse we've got fairly high standards here. More stats and respectable firsthand observations would be welcome.

FYI Vines is already in the Honorary HoF. I've decided to give most of the old-timers honorary mentions only due to lack of enough visual/statistical evidence, though Elly is actually the one guy I've strongly considered giving a numerical ranking (mostly thanks to research by krosero).

And Gonzales is on the list not only thanks to his legendary reputation but also because none other than Vic Braden concluded in his book Tennis 2000 (as good ol' Data once reminded us) that he was confident Pancho would be able to serve in the 140-ish mph range today. That kind of rigorous analysis is a far cry from the above poster's half-baked claim (or his quoting of Larsen's) that Hoad's serve was even more powerful than Gorgo's, especially when in an actual '59 serving contest Pancho came out slightly ahead, and that based on this wishing thinking alone his pin-up boy deserves a place among the ATG servers.

If he and his ilk were actually interested in discussion I'd be more sympathetic, but they seem to congregate here for the sole purpose of hyping up their hero, which is not only annoying as hell but a waste of everyone else's time. Of course fanboys are dime a dozen especially in the General Pro madhouse, but here we've got a couple of rabid Vilas seguidores who seem to have nothing better to do than agitating for their idol's imaginary #1 ranking in '77, not to mention the geezers who are presumably much older and should know better.

Speaking of whom....

Fanboy dullsville as usual. There have been literally dozens if not hundreds of servers who "used heavy spins in all directions" throughout tennis history. You and most of your fellow old farts have not shown the slightest hint of technical acumen (I still remember your comical description of Sampras of all people as a mediocre athlete) in all of your 132593454 posts combined. Just stick to what you do best and focus on historical trivia.

And you didn't bother to read what you quoted, again. If you wanna have a real discussion you should start paying more attention to what others actually say.

Make that impossible. The official statistician gave Raonic 16 FH/BH "rally" winners (including volleys), that is > 14. 16 + 11 aces + 2 service winners gives him the total tally of 29.

Thanks for the #s anyway. Did they flash that graphic after the other QFs yesterday?

Yeah. But it goes without saying, better return doesn't necessarily mean better return game. (Reportedly Andy was slightly injured, too.)

BTW that wasn't a fluke by Murray. I'm guessing you've seen this already but just in case:

Also Raonic did better in last year's SF, going 69/167 or 41.3% (Fed himself managed 58/160 or 36.3%).

And hardly controversial. Newk by all accounts was the Sampras/Becker of his day. Plus he's got several impressive feats of his own, having 39.2% of his serves unreturned against Kodes (one of the best returners back then) in the '73 USO final and 38.5% against Smith in the '71 Wimby final. Adjusting for conditions those #s would roughly translate to high-40s/low 50s today, which any player would gladly take in a major final.

Sorry to disturb your self-created cocoon of slumber, but GREAT SERVE = TOUGH TO BREAK, which is why Gonzales rated Hoad so high on service effectiveness. And, yes, a slow spun serve is easier to return than a heavy, hard, fast spun serve.

That 1959 test? Gonzales 112 mph on cannonball serve, Hoad at 110 mph, in other words, small difference, given the measurement procedure of the day.

abmk · Jul 13, 2017

NonP said:
BTW forgot to add I'm feeling better about adding Muller to my list after his latest Wimby run. Granted his ace totals fluctuated (from only 8 against Fucsovics in 1R to a whopping 45 vs. Rosol in 2R) and were nowhere near Goran's or Ivo's averages in '01 and '15 respectively, but results speak louder than numbers and his serve was no doubt a big ingredient of his success. Congrats to the Luxembourgian on his career-best achievement.

yeah,good, intelligent serving from Muller at this year's wimby.(this grass season in general). mental strength seems to have improved after finally winning his first title this year.

NonP said:
Gotcha. Not sure they'd include those as "rally" winners, but you could be right. Even so we'd be talking 4-5 return winners tops from Milos, which leaves an awfully small window for him here.

I meant any winners in the return game, not necessarily with the return.

NonP said:
I'd guess so myself. Now that you mention it I might do some kind of analysis when I get a chance.

would be interesting to see if you get to it.

NonP said:
40% (32/80) for Fed, 42.9% (36/84) for Milos.

(BTW my Fed URS list could really use a new update, but it seems that I come across new Fed #s every other week or so. Maybe I'll finally go ahead when my total hits 100.)

ok, thanks. so fed got back a slightly higher% of serves back into play, so did Raonic this time around than in 14. Marginal difference though.

NonP said:
P.S. FYI the Wimbledon site annoyingly doesn't show the latest stats on the player's profile page. Muller hit 8 aces against Fucsovics, not 6. Did get his total right vs. Rosol.

I just go by the completed scores page.

Moose Malloy · Jul 14, 2017

Apparently IBM does a Wimbledon blog every day with certain stats being spotlighted. I came across it when I was searching for a source on 53% of Venus' serves being unreturned vs Ostapenko which I read about in various match reports. They say she had 31 of 58 serves unreturned. Ostapenko only had 20% of her serves unreturned. I've done stats on many women's matches over the years and 53% is extremely high, will have to compile them all together some day. There has been a quantum leap in serving in the women's game in recent years, no equivalent of Becker, Curren in the 80s for them. The blog said that Venus had 46% of her first serves unreturned in her first 5 matches and 30% of her 2nd serves. And through the first 4 matches for the men queerey had the best ratio for unreturned 1st serves with 62% and Djokovic had the
Best for unreturned 2nd serves with 34%. Will try to post links later but they shouldn't be hard to find. Search game changers and Wimbledon and IBM.

Read another blog that says Cilic had 45% of his serves unreturned vs Muller, and 56% of his first serves unreturned.

This women from IBM tweets stats at @ eryanobrien
I'm not on Twitter, but maybe one of you can contact her, I'm sure she has all the unreturned serve numbers for the entire tournament.

NonP · Jul 14, 2017

mhkeuns said:
I wonder who owns the title of owning the greatest second serve. IIRC, Sampras' second serves were just as effective as his first serves.

You can count literally on the fingers of one hand the players who were renowned in tennis circles for their 2nd serve, which was not only seen as an exceptionally strong shot but rather considered a nonpareil weapon: Kramer, Newcombe and Sampras. And while era comparisons are tricky the title probably goes to Pistol.

Dan Lobb said:
Sorry to disturb your self-created cocoon of slumber, but GREAT SERVE = TOUGH TO BREAK, which is why Gonzales rated Hoad so high on service effectiveness. And, yes, a slow spun serve is easier to return than a heavy, hard, fast spun serve.

That 1959 test? Gonzales 112 mph on cannonball serve, Hoad at 110 mph, in other words, small difference, given the measurement procedure of the day.

Typical Dan Lobb tactic. You see, this is why I don't bother to engage you anymore, 'cause I know whatever the hell I tell you will go in one ear and out the other. You just attacked at least two straw men while offering a bunch of platitudes which nobody would dispute.

But I see that even you admit Larsen and your bud were talking crap when they said your pin-up boy's serve was more powerful than Gonzales'. I'll take it, even though you couldn't bring yourself to say it.

abmk said:
yeah,good, intelligent serving from Muller at this year's wimby.(this grass season in general). mental strength seems to have improved after finally winning his first title this year.

I caught some of the Muller-Nadal replay and it did look like a very high-quality match, maybe even the best of the tournament. That is, Rafa didn't lose it, Gilles won it. My guess is that Muller in the next round would've defeated almost anyone other than Cilic.

Speaking of who I know you're pulling for your guy but my crystal ball tells me Marin will win his 2nd major on Sunday. No objective analysis here (hard to analyze anything when you've seen so little of it), just a gut feeling I've had since even before his win over Muller. The guy seems to be the real sleeper of this GC season.

I meant any winners in the return game, not necessarily with the return.

Ah, I see what you mean now. Should've noticed all winners were counted, not only those on serve. Had a brain fart there.

ok, thanks. so fed got back a slightly higher% of serves back into play, so did Raonic this time around than in 14. Marginal difference though.

De nada.

I just go by the completed scores page.

You always should. It's the one thing I've learned while exhuming those old archived pages (remember that incomplete box score for the '00 USO final?). The #s on the player's profile page usually seem to have been left off just a few points before the last one of the match.

Moose Malloy said:
Apparently IBM does a Wimbledon blog every day with certain stats being spotlighted. I came across it when I was searching for a source on 53% of Venus' serves being unreturned vs Ostapenko which I read about in various match reports. They say she had 31 of 58 serves unreturned. Ostapenko only had 20% of her serves unreturned. I've done stats on many women's matches over the years and 53% is extremely high, will have to compile them all together some day. There has been a quantum leap in serving in the women's game in recent years, no equivalent of Becker, Curren in the 80s for them. The blog said that Venus had 46% of her first serves unreturned in her first 5 matches and 30% of her 2nd serves. And through the first 4 matches for the men queerey had the best ratio for unreturned 1st serves with 62% and Djokovic had the
Best for unreturned 2nd serves with 34%. Will try to post links later but they shouldn't be hard to find. Search game changers and Wimbledon and IBM.

Read another blog that says Cilic had 45% of his serves unreturned vs Muller, and 56% of his first serves unreturned.

This women from IBM tweets stats at @ eryanobrien
I'm not on Twitter, but maybe one of you can contact her, I'm sure she has all the unreturned serve numbers for the entire tournament.

Came across this before you posted those tidbits:

So yeah, wouldn't be surprised if IBM had the URS #s for the entire event. As you may have guessed I'm not on Twitter either, and even if I were I'd be hesitant to hit up a complete stranger for such a big favor. Which is another way of saying, go ahead and post those links.

Dan Lobb · Jul 14, 2017

NonP said:
You can count literally on the fingers of one hand the players who were renowned in tennis circles for their 2nd serve, which was not only seen as an exceptionally strong shot but rather considered a nonpareil weapon: Kramer, Newcombe and Sampras. And while era comparisons are tricky the title probably goes to Pistol.

Typical Dan Lobb tactic. You see, this is why I don't bother to engage you anymore, 'cause I know whatever the hell I tell you will go in one ear and out the other. You just attacked at least two straw men while offering a bunch of platitudes which nobody would dispute.

But I see that even you admit Larsen and your bud were talking crap when they said your pin-up boy's serve was more powerful than Gonzales'. I'll take it, even though you couldn't bring yourself to say it.

I caught some of the Muller-Nadal replay and it did look like a very high-quality match, maybe even the best of the tournament. That is, Rafa didn't lose it, Gilles won it. My guess is that Muller in the next round would've defeated almost anyone other than Cilic.

Speaking of who I know you're pulling for your guy but my crystal ball tells me Marin will win his 2nd major on Sunday. No objective analysis here (hard to analyze anything when you've seen so little of it), just a gut feeling I've had since even before his win over Muller. The guy seems to be the real sleeper of this GC season.

Ah, I see what you mean now. Should've noticed all winners were counted, not only those on serve. Had a brain fart there.

De nada.

You always should. It's the one thing I've learned while exhuming those old archived pages (remember that incomplete box score for the '00 USO final?). The #s on the player's profile page usually seem to have been left off just a few points before the last one of the match.

Came across this before you posted those tidbits:

So yeah, wouldn't be surprised if IBM had the URS #s for the entire event. As you may have guessed I'm not on Twitter either, and even if I were I'd be hesitant to hit up a complete stranger for such a big favor. Which is another way of saying, go ahead and post those links.

Larsen would know, having played both.

Power is not just a function of speed of the ball, but the torque of the ball rotation, which is where Hoad loaded the ball with power.

abmk · Jul 14, 2017

NonP said:
I caught some of the Muller-Nadal replay and it did look like a very high-quality match, maybe even the best of the tournament. That is, Rafa didn't lose it, Gilles won it. My guess is that Muller in the next round would've defeated almost anyone other than Cilic.

yeah, I think so.

NonP said:
Speaking of who I know you're pulling for your guy but my crystal ball tells me Marin will win his 2nd major on Sunday. No objective analysis here (hard to analyze anything when you've seen so little of it), just a gut feeling I've had since even before his win over Muller. The guy seems to be the real sleeper of this GC season.

Based on grass court warmup tournaments+ actual slam winning possibility ( which excludes Lopez for instance), Cilic was #2 after Federer. Not a sleeper if you've been following the grass court tournaments before wimby tbh. I think he was #5 according to the bookies before wimby started ( after the big 4)

I actually feared him , given he was broken only once in 8 matches (in 2 warmup tournaments) and knew he was going to go deep at Wimby, but given he's been broken 10 times at wimby and having watched his QF and SF matches, that fear's gone down. Fed's favorite , though Cilic has a decent shot, IMO.

NonP said:
You always should. It's the one thing I've learned while exhuming those old archived pages (remember that incomplete box score for the '00 USO final?). The #s on the player's profile page usually seem to have been left off just a few points before the last one of the match.

never really bothered with the #s from a player's profile page while checking those. I go straight for the completed matches.

Limpinhitter · Jul 15, 2017

abmk said:
yeah, I think so.

Based on grass court warmup tournaments+ actual slam winning possibility ( which excludes Lopez for instance), Cilic was #2 after Federer. Not a sleeper if you've been following the grass court tournaments before wimby tbh. I think he was #5 according to the bookies before wimby started ( after the big 4)

I actually feared him , given he was broken only once in 8 matches (in 2 warmup tournaments) and knew he was going to go deep at Wimby, but given he's been broken 10 times at wimby and having watched his QF and SF matches, that fear's gone down. Fed's favorite , though Cilic has a decent shot, IMO.

never really bothered with the #s from a player's profile page while checking those. I go straight for the completed matches.

According to Vic Braden, Pancho Gonzalez serve was so dominant on the pro tour that they experimented with giving players only one serve instead of two to try to neutralize Gonzalez' advantage. It backfired, and increased his advantage. All this to say that there is no doubt in my mind that Gonzalez second serve was one of the all time greats.

Limpinhitter · Jul 15, 2017

Dan Lobb said:
Larsen would know, having played both.

Power is not just a function of speed of the ball, but the torque of the ball rotation, which is where Hoad loaded the ball with power.

Hoad not only hit a very heavy serve, his serve had great disguise.

Dan Lobb · Jul 16, 2017

Limpinhitter said:
Hoad not only hit a very heavy serve, his serve had great disguise.

Hoad used the same arm motion for every serve.
Yes, the movement and direction of the ball was unpredictable, given the amount of spin which his wrist movement gave.
And, again, the statements that Hoad serve was more powerful than Gonzales means that the torque of his serves gave the power, which is more than just about absolute speed, but also the force of rotation on the ball.
The most sophisticated serve ever.

Steady Eddy · Jul 20, 2017

Glad to see Denton on the honorable mentions list. I was at an exhibition and Denton and some junior champion were the "warm up" act. Denton waited until the middle of the set to pull out his big serve. It was incredibly loud and the crowd was stunned into silence. Denton grinned and then did a few more like that, just for fun. After that he gave the kid a break. But all always remember that serve.

One thing about Stich. In my tennis encyclopedia, he has the dubious honor of having the record for most double faults in a season. But in the year he did that, he was rated 2nd in the world! So i bet he hit alot of aces and service winners off his second serve. His serve was a weapon, if he missed on the first try, he didn't let his opponent off the hook.

Sometimes that's a good strategy.

P.S. Where is Francoise Durr's serve rated?

Chanwan · Jul 29, 2017

@NonP @krosero @Moose Malloy
have read through some of this epic thread, but not all.
I would think that unreturned serves would be the greatest metric, but sadly we don't have the data for enough matches to make it statistical relevant as far as I can tell?
We do have some data concerning ace rate (aces per service point), which should be one of the best metrics imo. See post 107 in the link below.
Edit: Here it is: @Sysyphus
"For ace rate, Fed has 9.9% for his career. For comparison, Rao has 16.5%, Isner is at 19.8%, Ivo at a whopping 23.3% (!). Pete not too surprisingly hits a middle ground between Fed and the serve bots with 13.1% for his career."

If you fancy, do join us and bring in some perspective here: https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...server-in-history.595506/page-3#post-11460659

NonP · Jul 29, 2017

Dan Lobb said:
Larsen would know, having played both.

Power is not just a function of speed of the ball, but the torque of the ball rotation, which is where Hoad loaded the ball with power.

Dan Lobb said:
Hoad used the same arm motion for every serve.
Yes, the movement and direction of the ball was unpredictable, given the amount of spin which his wrist movement gave.
And, again, the statements that Hoad serve was more powerful than Gonzales means that the torque of his serves gave the power, which is more than just about absolute speed, but also the force of rotation on the ball.
The most sophisticated serve ever.

You can keep regurgitating your BS and platitudes till the world comes to an end but that doesn't make your crackpot claims any more valid. The bottom line is that your pin-up boy is nowhere near Gorgo or other GSOAT candidates. Oh, and you don't even know what "torque" means in this context.

Steady Eddy said:
Glad to see Denton on the honorable mentions list. I was at an exhibition and Denton and some junior champion were the "warm up" act. Denton waited until the middle of the set to pull out his big serve. It was incredibly loud and the crowd was stunned into silence. Denton grinned and then did a few more like that, just for fun. After that he gave the kid a break. But all always remember that serve.

One thing about Stich. In my tennis encyclopedia, he has the dubious honor of having the record for most double faults in a season. But in the year he did that, he was rated 2nd in the world! So i bet he hit alot of aces and service winners off his second serve. His serve was a weapon, if he missed on the first try, he didn't let his opponent off the hook.

Sometimes that's a good strategy.

You know, you actually have some interesting things to say about tennis when you're not moaning about those sexual degenerates or just chattering away in O&E. Yes, I've heard from a couple other longtime fans about how humongous Denton's serve was, and it shows up in his ace %. The Ivanisevic/Karlovic of his era.

And Stich's 2nd serve was the main reason why none other than Sampras feared him more than anyone else. You're quite right his DF frequency wasn't necessarily a shortcoming on his part. In fact I've argued that most of today's players should be DFing more, not less.

Chanwan said:
@NonP @krosero @Moose Malloy
have read through some of this epic thread, but not all.
I would think that unreturned serves would be the greatest metric, but sadly we don't have the data for enough matches to make it statistical relevant as far as I can tell?
We do have some data concerning ace rate (aces per service point), which should be one of the best metrics imo. See post 107 in the link below.
Edit: Here it is: @Sysyphus
"For ace rate, Fed has 9.9% for his career. For comparison, Rao has 16.5%, Isner is at 19.8%, Ivo at a whopping 23.3% (!). Pete not too surprisingly hits a middle ground between Fed and the serve bots with 13.1% for his career."

If you fancy, do join us and bring in some perspective here: https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...server-in-history.595506/page-3#post-11460659

Welcome to the club.

Before I start you might like to know that we do have a sizable URS database for many of these players, well in my own stack anyway. FYI I've already shared some of these #s (which I should add are mostly the work of Moose, krosero, @slice serve ace and Voo de Mar) in this very thread and will try to post links later tonight.

And yes, aces per service point is definitely a better metric than aces per match (which of course is what you see when you look at this ATP table only). Case in point:

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...erves-of-all-time.306579/page-20#post-9534377

As you can see Goran actually served more aces per service point in his 1st four rounds at '01 Wimbledon than Karlovic on his respective run in '15, but I guarantee you that's not what you heard shortly after Ivo posted those "record" ace totals at '15 Wimby. You can read the rest of my post for other reasons why one shouldn't put too much stock in aces/match.

But we're really going off on a tangent here. The fact of the matter is that even aces per service point can be misleading especially when it comes to servers like Sampras and Roddick, who almost certainly got more free points off their serve than other servers with similar ace counts. Even the likes of Ivo, Goran, Isner, Krajicek and Ranoic don't win over 50% of their service points outright that often, and I can say with a great deal of confidence (more so in Pete's case, since I have a significantly bigger URS collection for him) that Pete's and Andy's rate wasn't all that much worse. In fact I'd put Pete's freebie % up against almost anybody's (largely due in no small part to his unusually heavy topspin), this despite his considerably lower ace frequency than those servebots'. OTOH Isner's URS % is often surprisingly subpar for a server of his caliber, and Raonic's has been found wanting in the biggest matches of his career. These are just some of the many interesting findings that have come out of this thread. No wonder many consider it the single greatest thread in TT history (their words, not mine).

And speaking of clutch factor one thing we should keep in mind about the likes of Ivo and Isner is the fact that they faced top opposition less often than their more accomplished counterparts. Also technology does play a significant role here. More on these and other factors:

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...erves-of-all-time.306579/page-21#post-9632916
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...erves-of-all-time.306579/page-21#post-9632917

Long story short I rank Goran's serve above Ivo's as a pure shot because of my eye test. That is, I reckon Goran's lefty spin and well-nigh unreadable motion would come in handier than even Ivo's height advantage against the top players/returners. When Goran's serve was on there was literally nothing you could do about it except guess. I've never seen an opponent rendered so helpless by anyone, and among his peers in history (well, in the Open era at any rate) the only ones that come close are probably Tanner and Curren, though even here Goran's got his own height advantage.

But if I were to choose the best serveR - that is, the guy I'd want to serve for my life - the predictable but well-justified pick is Sampras. I know I'm tooting my own horn here but I'm not making an idle boast when I say you'll be hard-pressed to find other GSOAT rankings that have incorporated more thought and research. Some of these rankings may be better supported than the others, but they all have some basis in fact and history.

abmk · Jul 29, 2017

@NonP :

Pete's URS is comparable to Roddick in part because he SnVed far more. (Same applies for Goran, Krajicek, but I think to a lesser extent )

that tends to raise the % of unreturned serves. We saw that Federer's highest unreturned serve%s were mainly when he was SnVing (2001,2003)

Otherwise, I think Sampras' would be clearly below Roddick's, if he was staying back and returners could just get the ball back in

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