How fast do recreational players serve?

[movdqa]

There is probably an app, but i think it would be dependant on the camera frame capture speed. Your watch probably only does 30 fps, i see the iphone8 can do 60 if you unlock (non apple user).

Not real sure how the radar works.

I'm not talking about using the camera on the watch. But using the accelerometers. Not sue if the GPS unit would be useful as I think that the sampling is way to slow though there are far more accurate devices (thousands of samples per second).

 

[Nostradamus]

100 on one of those (sitting at the net) would be what mph coming off the string bed in your opinion?

A friend of mine was hitting 120+ on one of those, had very good serve.

it is garbage and it is inaccurate. it is also very inconsistent depending on where you position the device. I was measuring 100 + on the Playsight machine, That isn't accurate either.

 

[Chadillac]

it is garbage and it is inaccurate. it is also very inconsistent depending on where you position the device. I was measuring 100 + on the Playsight machine, That isn't accurate either.

You can put in on the service line and hit up the T. I dont think it would be accurate on the slice, but for flat its no far off (assuming you hit over it). Minus the cheap contact pt stuff they do now.

Pete served 118, but didnt lose 50% off bounce

 

[Nostradamus]

You can put in on the service line and hit up the T. I dont think it would be accurate on the slice, but for flat its no far off (assuming you hit over it). Minus the cheap contact pt stuff they do now.

Pete served 118, but didnt lose 50% off bounce

what is cheap contact point ?

 

[Curiosity]

You can put in on the service line and hit up the T. I dont think it would be accurate on the slice, but for flat its no far off (assuming you hit over it). Minus the cheap contact pt stuff they do now.

Pete served 118, but didnt lose 50% off bounce

From "Technical Tennis:
BOUNCE FACTOR #2: INCIDENT SPEED AND SPIN A ball loses about 25 percent of its speed while traveling through the air. For example, a ball served at 100 mph lands on the court at about 75 mph. The bounce slows the ball about one-third of its speed, so it is traveling around 50 mph after the bounce.

Cross, Rod; Lindsey, Crawford. Technical Tennis: Racquets, Strings, Balls, Courts, Spin, and Bounce (Kindle Locations 1793-1797). Independent Publishers Group. Kindle Edition.

Pete's 118 mph serve would come off an average hard court at about 60 mph, a decrease from initial speed of about 50%, according to the source. A 130 mph serve would come off the court at about 66 mph.

Still, that's a difficult ball to get to when it's 9 feet away from your ready position, no? The average speed of the ball from racquet to bounce is higher, of course, so you don't have much time to cover the 9 feet adjusted for rise from the bounce. The 118 mph ball is getting to the bounce at an average velocity closer to 104 mph. Therefore it seems to me that getting to the ball is the difficult part, not its absolute velocity rising from the bounce.

 

[Chadillac]

what is cheap contact point ?

Inflating the speed of the serve by measuring it off the stringbed instead of net.

 

[Nostradamus]

Inflating the speed of the serve by measuring it off the stringbed instead of net.

What's the difference as long as you are consistent with the method .. and it is more impressive number if you measure right off the string bed. 120 MPH sounds much more impressive than 100 mph,,,,,sure does to me.

 

[Chadillac]

What's the difference as long as you are consistent with the method .. and it is more impressive number if you measure right off the string bed. 120 MPH sounds much more impressive than 100 mph,,,,,sure does to me.

So 116 while crossing net means i served 130+? I find that hard to believe but may put it in my sig

 

[Nostradamus]

So 116 while crossing net means i served 130+? I find that hard to believe but may put it in my sig

Not sure exactly how many MPH the ball loses as it crosses the net. but I do know it is much faster just as it comes off the string bed. I know a 4.5 guys that was serving around 130 mph, but not consistently, of course. he was just loading up and ripping it as hard as he could. Babolat team Natural gut full bed, 16 Gauge on old Pure drive plus.

 

[mike1ace]

I’m a senior player and my flat serve is typically low 90s to upper 90s. On rare days I can break 100 mph. One 40 something player locally serves in the 110 range. My son, who is a 3.5 going on 4.0, has reached about 110 and the speed is still rising. I use the serve speed app and subtract 3 mph from what it reads. I calibrated it against the radar guns at Indian Wells to get that number. The app is pretty accurate but you have to look out for skipped frames that result in a false higher speed. Just guessing back in the day I topped out at about 115 using the Wilson ultra pro staff. I.e. the Sampras racquet.

 

[Dartagnan64]

I think anyone claiming to serve 130 mph is full of beans really. I've watched Vasek Pospisil serve practice at our club. He's a 130 mph guy and ball resembles nothing that i've seen from any of our top juniors or club pros or open players. It sounds like a cannon and hits the back fence about 8 feet high. I've been to Indian wells and watched Kyrgios hit a 139 mph serve that literally went 6 feet over the opponents head so he had to start returning from the back wall.

The 130 mph range is ludicrously outside of rec players wheelhouse from what I've seen. It requires a perfect kinetic chain, arm length, and powerful legs. And thousands and thousands of reps.

 

[LeeD]

There is no doubt a pro men serve bot hits harder than any of us.
However, high bounce heights are achieved by high contact point and new abrasive court surfaces.
While Isner can bounce a serve 7' high at the backfence, no doubt YOU can also achieve your personal highest bounce height if you served right after him on the same court.

 

[IowaGuy]

I think anyone claiming to serve 130 mph is full of beans really...The 130 mph range is ludicrously outside of rec players wheelhouse from what I've seen. It requires a perfect kinetic chain, arm length, and powerful legs. And thousands and thousands of reps.

I agree.

I was at an ATP 250 semifinal tournament with Kyle Edmond, Roberto Bautista Agut, Struff, and Dzumur. Edmund and Agut were hitting in the 110-125 range (neither of them cracked 130 IIRC). Dzumur often didn't even hit over 100MPH, his biggest serves were like 105-110.

Only 6'5" Struff routinely hit over 130, I think his highest was 135.

 

[dman72]

A guy I play with who doesn't have what is considered a huge serve clocked 101 at the NY tennis expo thing a few weeks back., He wasn't even warmed up., 100 is not a big deal...110 is big for a male rec player ....120 huge and pretty rare and at rec levels probably not consistent...130 probably doesn't exit.

 

[NLBwell]

I've hit against/played against a few guys who served over 130mph in rec tennis. One was a former #1 at Univ. of Arizona (IIRC) who was on my 5.0 team, one was a former college guy I played in a league match, and one was a former ATP pro who had at one time the second faster serve on record.
The ones from the college guys were fast and they could place them where they wanted, but were handleable if it wasn't a clean ace.
The ones from the former ATP pro were bouncing over my head and curving away from me at 130+mph. A completely different level of difficulty to return.

 

[FiReFTW]

Even a 110mph serve is hard to get too if its on the line, or a good slice out wide (can be even less like 100-105mph), you can see how many aces pros hit with such speeds if the ball is placed well (Federer for example hits tons of aces at around 105-115mph)
130mph is pretty much almost impossible to get too if its placed so well, unless you guess the direction and already slightly move there beforehand.

 

[zaph]

Most rec players serve nowhere near as fast as they think they do, I doubt many break the 100mph barrier. I will caveat that by saying I play in England and the often cold damp conditions don't exactly speed the serve up.

We have a guy at our club who can hit 125mph plus and has done on a speed gun. His serve is a class above everyone else's, when he hits a line it is passed you, you haven't a hope. If you get a racket on it, you can feel the weight of the ball, it is very difficult to control. He also has a monster kick serve.

None of the other rec players I have seen have a serve anywhere near as good. Put it this way, if I can return it, it ain't some 100mph plus monster and I can return the serves of people who claim to have this sort of pace.

 

[Ronaldo]

A guy I play with who doesn't have what is considered a huge serve clocked 101 at the NY tennis expo thing a few weeks back., He wasn't even warmed up., 100 is not a big deal...110 is big for a male rec player ....120 huge and pretty rare and at rec levels probably not consistent...130 probably doesn't exit.

There is a Super Senior who broke 130 mph

 

[Dartagnan64]

There is no doubt a pro men serve bot hits harder than any of us.
However, high bounce heights are achieved by high contact point and new abrasive court surfaces.
While Isner can bounce a serve 7' high at the backfence, no doubt YOU can also achieve your personal highest bounce height if you served right after him on the same court.

Pospisil was serving on our hard courts which are the Wimbledon of hard courts. The club members don’t want slow hard courts because it adversely affects their flat hitting no topspin game. Still Pospisil hit the back fence at 8 feet. Hardest hitting rec player I’ve seen (6’4” Italian former challenger level player) hit one at 6’ on the back wall. Our clubs best server hits about 3’ on the back wall with his heater.

No idea what speeds these rec players hit but it wasn’t Pospisil level by a long shot.

I’ve no doubt that some guys got a fluke register of 130 on a speed gun one time but until you replicate it a dozen times, you don’t have a 130 mph serve.