Minimum speed of serve for the ball to hit back fence on 1st bounce?

T

toptalent

Rookie
Since the topics of serve speeds seem to be pretty popular here, I'd like to start my own.

Most of us don't, and probably never will have a radar gun to measure our serve speeds. However a traditional way to judge a "good" serve is to see whether the ball hits the back fence on its first bounce, right? I wonder if anyone from his experience knows the ballpark of minimum speeds for the ball to hit the back fence at around 2 feet, say on a T flat serve? What about 5,6 feet?
 
For me the traditional way to judge a good serve is to see if you are racking up aces or service winners while maintaing a solid first serve percentage and your second serve is not easily attacked. This is the "traditional" method. The problem with not having a radar and guestimating by bounce is that there is no refernce to the trajectory of the ball. A ball of the same speed and spin will bounce at differently based on were they originally struck. So the ball being served by someone who is 6'5" may bounce higher than someone whose 6'0" even if speed and spin were identical. Court surface has a lot do with bounce as well. There is no way to know the speed of the serve based on just where it hit the backstop. There to many other factors which affect the ball bounce as well.
 
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I dont think the back fence is a great indicator for ball speed. Everything that was mentioned above as well as different courts have different distances from the baseline to the back fence. I play on one highschool court where the back fence is so far back, that i barely ever see anyone hitting the back fence at all, and i know some of the varsity players ive seen practice got some "up there" service speeds. Wish we all could have access to a radar gun, would love to know what my service speeds EXACTLY are too.
 
hitting the back fence from the bounce in the service box is an established indicator of having some heat on your serve. ill try to find the speed range if someone doesnt post it first
 
Speed doesnt have to do that much with hitting the back fence. It only indicate that the serve has penetration and it maintaing certain level of energy after the bounce, personally i prefer my serves to hit the back fence rather than to be fast. I think it also indicate that you made good contact with the ball with a relaxed and good movement.
 
This post does have some merit but there are ofcourse other factors including the weather (humid, dry, hot, cold), court surface, slow or fast, condition of ball (new and pressurized), and lenght from baseline to fence (often 21' which is the size of the service box lenght)

The type of serve is also a factor as kick or slice will make for a higher bounce, and deflect the bounce at an angle away from the serve path trajectory.

With all that said, I would gestimate that a flat "cannonball" serve would need to be atleast 80mph to hit the fence. From my experience, I would gestimate that such a serve that is more like 100mph has a chance to wedge into the fence. That is always impressive to the weekend hacker. I have also seen serve go thru the fence and believe this would happen with serves that are more like 120mph.
 
^^ it depends on the fence :) ... also, IME, spinny shots have more tendency to stuck on the fence or go thru. I have hit more than one FH & serves that get stuck on the fence and beleive me I do not hit 80MPH FH nor 100MPH services.
 
As noted previously, it does depend on a number of factors, but since nobody will throw a number out there I'll take a crack at it. I'm going to say a serve generally has to be close to 100 MPH for it to hit the fence off the 1st bounce.
 
joe sch said:
Not useless ... it take speculation and thinking like this for someone with a radar gun to go out and prove the speculation.
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You would have to test 100 serves from 100 player on 100 courts with 100 racquets and 100 balls to even come close to stating a valid claim as such...

Useless.
 
Slicendicer said:
You would have to test 100 serves from 100 player on 100 courts with 100 racquets and 100 balls to even come close to stating a valid claim as such...

Useless.
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As I stated earlier, state your initial conditions, and do the tests ...
One server, on one court, hitting the necessary number of serves to prove the postulates. Not that difficult for someone who has a radar gun but its more important to improve serve placement and spin, not speed or the ability to hit a fence.
 
Speculation, guesswork, detective, don't matter....
You tend to find courts have 20' spacing from baseline to back fence.
You mostly count NEW balls.
Flat serves, about 100 to hit the back fence thigh high if the serve goes in.
Topspin serves can easily hit higher, much higher sometimes, but at slightly lower speeds, say 85mph.
Exact ? Of course not. Even a radar gun is NOT exact. Nothing is exact in tennis.
Now you take a weak server who is not 6'6" tall, tell him to hit flat serves, and it never hits the back wall.
Take a 5'5" pro level server hitting topspin serves, and they all hit the back fence about thigh high maybe going 90mph.
Still, it's an indicator of ball speed, since radar guns are not nearly as exact as some of you theorists might believe.
 
1) Depends on the distance of the fence from the baseline too.
Generally it is ~21 ft I think.

2) Depends on the type of serves.
Flat or low slice at ~95 mph may not reach a 21 ft fence on 1st bounce.
Topspin at ~85 will likely reach a 21 ft fence on 1st bounce.
 
mikeler said:
As noted previously, it does depend on a number of factors, but since nobody will throw a number out there I'll take a crack at it. I'm going to say a serve generally has to be close to 100 MPH for it to hit the fence off the 1st bounce.
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I just got the SpeedDrac radar and serves that are 80 MPH will hit the back fence on the first bounce. This is for standard size outdoors hard courts and flat serves. Serves that are 95+ MPH, the ball is still rising when it hits the back fence (or at least not descending) and would still hit fences much further back.
 
bpp said:
I just got the SpeedDrac radar and serves that are 80 MPH will hit the back fence on the first bounce. This is for standard size outdoors hard courts and flat serves. Serves that are 95+ MPH, the ball is still rising when it hits the back fence (or at least not descending) and would still hit fences much further back.
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how tall are you? which balls? Light dunlop balls stay fast longer. Heavy duty fuzzy balls slow down real quick during flight.
 
and remember most topspin hitters are moving the ball around 65 mph, on second serves, so those never get to the back wall.....
You can measure distance to back wall by laying your rackets down end to end from baseline to backwall. For those of you who don't have 9 rackets, maybe move the one that was down a while .... :):) Then multiply inches of each racket.
As an old fart with diminishing service speeds, my flats that go in usually hit about waist high. My fastest topspin FIRST serves about chest high on the back wall. My normal second serve never gets close to the back wall, because it's maybe moving 65 mph.
Deep twists go waay higher before the side wall, but drops to barely hitting the back wall. Short twist have no chance.
 
I dont think serves have to be necessarily fast to touch the back fence. I think its how fast the serve gets to the fence that counts.
 
tennisdad65 said:
how tall are you? which balls? Light dunlop balls stay fast longer. Heavy duty fuzzy balls slow down real quick during flight.
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5' 11". I had the video "Is My Serve 100 MPH+". There seems to be a lot of factors that affect both speed and bounce. I was going to post a video with me serving with the radar gun clearing 100 MPH but it was about 40 F outside and I had trouble clearing 95MPH. I had court time inside later that week and after playing 3 sets, I decided to test my serve. Almost all my serves were between 93- 99 MPH. So temperatue has a pretty huge effect and even ball type does. Outside I was using Penns which seem slower then the Wilsons I used indoors.
 
OvertheFence said:
I dont think serves have to be necessarily fast to touch the back fence. I think its how fast the serve gets to the fence that counts.
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Guess its not a "fast serve" if it rolls to the fense :)
How about on a few bounces ?
Edberg could kick serves over the side fence, they may not have been soo fast but they were some of the most efective ever, especially since he would volley away if the opponent was able to block back
 
joe sch said:
I have also seen serve go thru the fence and believe this would happen with serves that are more like 120mph.
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It doesn't have to be that fast. The only bad thing about hitting through the fence is that you have to walk a ways to go hunt down the ball sometimes.
 
tennisdad65 said:
1) Depends on the distance of the fence from the baseline too.
Generally it is ~21 ft I think.

2) Depends on the type of serves.
Flat or low slice at ~95 mph may not reach a 21 ft fence on 1st bounce.
Topspin at ~85 will likely reach a 21 ft fence on 1st bounce.
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Agree. I don't believe there is much correlation between speed of serve and hitting the back fence. I can hit my kick serve at below 75 mph and hit the back fence (~21ft) on the 1st bounce.
 
bpp said:
5' 11". I had the video "Is My Serve 100 MPH+". There seems to be a lot of factors that affect both speed and bounce. I was going to post a video with me serving with the radar gun clearing 100 MPH but it was about 40 F outside and I had trouble clearing 95MPH. I had court time inside later that week and after playing 3 sets, I decided to test my serve. Almost all my serves were between 93- 99 MPH. So temperatue has a pretty huge effect and even ball type does. Outside I was using Penns which seem slower then the Wilsons I used indoors.
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Interesting posts BPP. Welcome to the boards. I was watching an open level final just after Xmas and one of the guys hit a righty kick serve down the middle on the deuce court and it went over the back fence. This fence is probably only 7 or 8 feet tall but it was pretty impressive. Back in my junior days, I saw Tommy Ho hit a lefty kick serve in the deuce court that came about a foot from going over the side fence which was probably a 12' fence.
 
mikeler said:
Interesting posts BPP. Welcome to the boards. I was watching an open level final just after Xmas and one of the guys hit a righty kick serve down the middle on the deuce court and it went over the back fence.
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I've done this as well at a tournament. However the clay was poorly taken care of and it hit a bad spot right before the service line tape. It was quite comical.
 
That ball I described hit right on the line on clay. I've hit some wild kickers on bad clay courts too though and I'm only 5'-8".
 
joe sch said:
With all that said, I would gestimate that a flat "cannonball" serve would need to be atleast 80mph to hit the fence. From my experience, I would gestimate that such a serve that is more like 100mph has a chance to wedge into the fence. That is always impressive to the weekend hacker. I have also seen serve go thru the fence and believe this would happen with serves that are more like 120mph.
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Little high on the estimates.

I pretty regularly hit serves and FHs through the fence at less than 120.

J
 
OvertheFence said:
How does on hit through the fence O.O
never seen it happen
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Practice.

Funny true story. I almost got arrested once from a ball that went through the fence. I was playing at a local (at the time) high school. There's houses on one side and the HS parking lot on the other parallel to the baseline. I'm a lefty so I faced away from the actual high school (having to hit towards the parking lot side). The courts are situated that they are bordered by trees and near the football field and there's more parking lot to the right of me. Basically I'm facing away from the street exit and cars that drive around in the lot.

Anyway, I go to serve, it goes through the fence and BAM, it nails the side of a police car patroling through the lot that had come right to left following the trees on the border out of my view. I guess the cop wasn't really paying attention to me and thought that I had hit a ball at his car OVER the fence on purpose. There was no one else at the courts and it's kind of one of those situations where the timing was just right between looking away and the ball hitting such that it seems like it was on purpose (make sense?). He did not believe me when I told him what happened. It took five more balls until I hit one through for me to prove I wasn't lying.
 
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I'm glad this post was started because I've been wondering this myself. At the courts where I usually practice serves, the back fence is exactly 21 feet from the baseline. On a good, flat first serve I can hit the back fence about 2 or 3 feet off the ground. At least I have a little better idea of what kind of speed I'm getting now.
 
OvertheFence said:
How does on hit through the fence O.O
never seen it happen
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I bet you have, but think you haven't because they're making it sound like at a certain speed the ball always goes through the fence. The ball doesn't tear through the metal fence, instead it squeezes through the links. So it's more a matter of hitting right in the middle of a 'diamond'. It has to be past some minimal speed for this to happen, but more important, it must hit just right. If I aimed a ball machine at the fence with sufficient speed, still only about 1% of the balls would go through. I've seen this with balls that were only moving at a medium speed.
 
Steady Eddy said:
I bet you have, but think you haven't because they're making it sound like at a certain speed the ball always goes through the fence. The ball doesn't tear through the metal fence, instead it squeezes through the links. So it's more a matter of hitting right in the middle of a 'diamond'. It has to be past some minimal speed for this to happen, but more important, it must hit just right. If I aimed a ball machine at the fence with sufficient speed, still only about 1% of the balls would go through. I've seen this with balls that were only moving at a medium speed.
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Exactly and it's not just some theoretical speed either. The condition of the fence has a lot to do with how hard a ball has to be hit in order for it to go through a hole. Things like rust and roughness are factors that increase friction necessitating a harder ball. Vinyl coated fences are almost a joke as a back stop as they are so slick. I've seen beginners who get a lucky "everything comes together like magic" serve moment who have hit a ball through a vinyl covered fence.
 
mtommer said:
Exactly and it's not just some theoretical speed either. The condition of the fence has a lot to do with how hard a ball has to be hit in order for it to go through a hole. Things like rust and roughness are factors that increase friction necessitating a harder ball. Vinyl coated fences are almost a joke as a back stop as they are so slick. I've seen beginners who get a lucky "everything comes together like magic" serve moment who have hit a ball through a vinyl covered fence.
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Best ever was me hitting 5 in a row through the fence.

Pure dumb luck.

Second best ever was this aggrivating little kid and his friend yelling crap from the other side of the fence, and I hit one through and drilled him.

J
 
Syfo-Dias said:
I'm glad this post was started because I've been wondering this myself. At the courts where I usually practice serves, the back fence is exactly 21 feet from the baseline. On a good, flat first serve I can hit the back fence about 2 or 3 feet off the ground. At least I have a little better idea of what kind of speed I'm getting now.
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Last time I got the radar out, I was hitting on average about 95mph. This was just first serve practice mainly, I was trying to get my average around 100mph without exerting any special effort. Many of these serves hit the center post or slightly higher which is at 5 feet I think. It was at least a 10 foot fence.

These serves were still rising when they hit the fence.

Some of my kickers were hitting the fence at 1 - 2 feet high and they were on the way down. These serves were from 66mph on the slow end to 80mph on the higher end. I had some that were 70mph or so that didn't even make it to the fence, or bounced off the bottom post.

It's very difficult to judge speed based on where the ball hits the fence, unless you have clocked your serve before, because everyone has a slightly different delivery. The spin makes a huge difference.
 
mikeler said:
Interesting posts BPP. Welcome to the boards. I was watching an open level final just after Xmas and one of the guys hit a righty kick serve down the middle on the deuce court and it went over the back fence. This fence is probably only 7 or 8 feet tall but it was pretty impressive. Back in my junior days, I saw Tommy Ho hit a lefty kick serve in the deuce court that came about a foot from going over the side fence which was probably a 12' fence.
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Mikeler, I think BPP is musch closer to correct. You're a good player yourself, any 5.0ish can try this. Just hit nice flat warmup serves, clean, with proper extension. Do ANY of your warmup serves NOT hit the backfence on a standard court??? Mine don't and I"m not tall. None of the 4.0's (except maybe a few pushmasters) don't hit the fence on the bounce and radar shows most of them in the 70-90mph range. I hazzard a guess that I can hit the fence with a clean flat serve at about....50mph? Maybe less? I think you can actually go slower and get more penetration because you don't inadvertently get much spin. To hit the fence, if you use a good motion and hit a clean flat serve, you'd actually have to really lob it in there to have it bounce before the fence!

I'd say if you can bounce the ball at least 4 feet up the fence on a flat serve, then you're probably at least in the 90mph range, depending on many other factors.
 
bet said:
Mikeler, I think BPP is musch closer to correct. You're a good player yourself, any 5.0ish can try this. Just hit nice flat warmup serves, clean, with proper extension. Do ANY of your warmup serves NOT hit the backfence on a standard court??? Mine don't and I"m not tall. None of the 4.0's (except maybe a few pushmasters) don't hit the fence on the bounce and radar shows most of them in the 70-90mph range. I hazzard a guess that I can hit the fence with a clean flat serve at about....50mph? Maybe less? I think you can actually go slower and get more penetration because you don't inadvertently get much spin. To hit the fence, if you use a good motion and hit a clean flat serve, you'd actually have to really lob it in there to have it bounce before the fence!

I'd say if you can bounce the ball at least 4 feet up the fence on a flat serve, then you're probably at least in the 90mph range, depending on many other factors.
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Jrod, I have not seen you on the boards in a while. I won't say every serve I hit in the warmup hits the back fence, because I go easy on the first few. I will say that every flat serve I hit in a match will hit the back fence after bouncing.

We have a facility that I used to play at a lot where the ball goes through the fence a few times a match. I was playing a friend of mine who wife was watching from behind the court. I aced him and almost took out her eye afterwards!
 
thejoe said:
Jolly, do you have any vids of your 120 mph serves? I'd love to see them.
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Not serving hard yet, I am chickenhearted until the weather warms up.

If you are just curious as to what my motion looks like, here is a vid of one of my flatter serves from last Friday. I am just starting to dust off the flat ball for deployment in the outdoor season.

http://vimeo.com/3793468

Leaving the house for a hit right now, if I get loose I will see if I can crack a few, but my back is mad at me for drinking too much last night.

If you want to see me really starch one, it has to be like 80 degrees before my body will cooperate.

On a nice warm summer day though, I can absolutely bring it. On serve and off the ground. Sometimes the ball even goes in ;)


J
 
maverick66 said:
anyone ever tell your strokes are ugly?
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Yea, some short guy with lousy taste in music.

I don't let it bother me though, because I was blessed with rugged good looks and roguish charm, that more than make up for any lack of grace or ability on a tennis court.

J
 
thejoe said:
How do you get so much speed when your arm essentially pauses at the L position?
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alot of guys do and still get massive power. the old keep one motion throughout the serve is not really necessary when your bigger or stronger. alot of players have a pause at the top then explode up. his is just ugly.
 
maverick66 said:
alot of guys do and still get massive power. the old keep one motion throughout the serve is not really necessary when your bigger or stronger. alot of players have a pause at the top then explode up. his is just ugly.
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I wouldn't call it ugly. I was just curious.
 
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