My 110+ mph serve with video and radar

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
I think a 20%, 111 mph serve could be quite handy at 3.0 and 3.5 levels.

Any serve that wild probably has some unsual action after bouncing that would make it hard to handle at the lower levels.

I know a guy who is 3.0-ish, plays doubles, and has about a 95mph/25% first serve that he hits with an eastern grip and quite a bit of underspin. I guess being 6'3", he gets away with this. He has an almost 100% winning rate on his frist serves. His second is very consistent, and he probably wins at least 50% of his points. Most 3.0/3.5 players fear his serve in doubles.


I understand your point mav, but at 20% that means they are getting possibly one first serve in for each service game, which is not effective for the outcome of a service hold.

To me, that is not effective at all. The other thing is, at that level, the one serve they do get in could be blocked back, if the placement is not good.
 

skuludo

Professional
The serve won't get blocked back at that level. When I played my 3 setter match against someone I don't know who hitting my crappy 90s-80s, the opponent failed to block it back. When he touched the ball the ball just got stuck on his frame and dropped right in front of him. I got loads of those types of balls returned when I got the serve in.
 

skuludo

Professional
That was the match where I hit the most aces cause he stands too close to the center on the deuce side. I just had to slap the serve into the corner.
 

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
well, that is different than what I was saying. Hitting aces no matter how fast you are hitting them are always going to get you the point.
 

skuludo

Professional
I've placed the radar up on a stand right where the service line (same side) where I am serving which was the same box was used to provide leverage for my camcorder. The radar gun was about my chest height (I am 5'6 1cm away from 5'7).

I did not get a faster speed doing this rather the exact same speeds. 80s-90s.
 

EricW

Professional
I HATE this thread. Even if he only got 20% of his serves in, he's got a huge serve to build consistency with! Give him a break!!
 

Jay27

Rookie
How are we supposed to know if the balls go in or not? Anybody can hit a ball that fast and have it hit the net or sail long. The key is to hit with that kind of power and allow the ball to go in.

I would prefer to see where the ball lands than just seeing the radar and a ball that hits the net 9 out of 10 times.

You're absolutely wrong with the assumption that anyone can hit it that fast. I love it when people want to hit their "100+" mph serves on my SpeedChek Radar gun (which costs around 130 dollars). Some will jump up there and predict a 100 mph and are very humbled when it reads 75 mph. They keep hitting and hitting and realize their serves are nowhere near what they think. Believe me, 100 mph is tough to achieve even if you are hitting into the net or over the service line. Not everyone can hit that fast...trust me. I can hit 100+ mph (fastest being 113 on my radar gun), but when I first got it I was in the mid 80's. I almost fainted! Although, that did prompt me to get lessons on my serve so I could figure out what my problems were. To my surprise, I had many problems...lol. Now, I'm a lot more comfortable and have a good explosion up into the ball. Something I lacked big time when I first got my radar. I call my radar gun......."The humbilizer".
 

boojay

Hall of Fame
speaking of swinging as hard as you can...a couple of summers ago, i tried swinging as hard as I could, like with as much of my might as I could muster and I almost killed myself. The momentum from my swing was so great that it lifted me off the ground and propelled me into a front flip, but luckily I stopped myself and landed on my face instead. :p

it was funny as hell.
 

raiden031

Legend
You're absolutely wrong with the assumption that anyone can hit it that fast. I love it when people want to hit their "100+" mph serves on my SpeedChek Radar gun (which costs around 130 dollars). Some will jump up there and predict a 100 mph and are very humbled when it reads 75 mph. They keep hitting and hitting and realize their serves are nowhere near what they think. Believe me, 100 mph is tough to achieve even if you are hitting into the net or over the service line. Not everyone can hit that fast...trust me. I can hit 100+ mph (fastest being 113 on my radar gun), but when I first got it I was in the mid 80's. I almost fainted! Although, that did prompt me to get lessons on my serve so I could figure out what my problems were. To my surprise, I had many problems...lol. Now, I'm a lot more comfortable and have a good explosion up into the ball. Something I lacked big time when I first got my radar. I call my radar gun......."The humbilizer".

I haven't taken a radar gun to my serve but I know that if I hit the ball as hard as I can without regard to where it lands, it will go significantly faster than if I am trying to get it to land in. It is known that the more power added to a stroke the greater loss of accuracy. If for instance I could hit a 100 mph ball into the net every time, I wouldn't claim that I can serve that fast unless the ball landed in bounds a reasonable amount of times (not by pure luck).
 

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
I haven't taken a radar gun to my serve but I know that if I hit the ball as hard as I can without regard to where it lands, it will go significantly faster than if I am trying to get it to land in. It is known that the more power added to a stroke the greater loss of accuracy. If for instance I could hit a 100 mph ball into the net every time, I wouldn't claim that I can serve that fast unless the ball landed in bounds a reasonable amount of times (not by pure luck).

Completely agree. I could hit harder than the serves I recorded. I hit a few between 110-115, but they did not land in so I did not post them when I did my thread.

It is much easier to hit the ball hard, than to hit the ball hard and get it to land in consitently. Then factor in being precise, such as down the T, body serve, or wide. Still, it is not easy to hit the 100 mph mark either way.

With that said, boojay has not been playing long, and is still working on getting comfortable with a service motion. I believe when he does finally stick to one motion and becomes comfortable with it, he will start to routinely get those 100+ seves in.
 

Jay27

Rookie
I haven't taken a radar gun to my serve but I know that if I hit the ball as hard as I can without regard to where it lands, it will go significantly faster than if I am trying to get it to land in. It is known that the more power added to a stroke the greater loss of accuracy. If for instance I could hit a 100 mph ball into the net every time, I wouldn't claim that I can serve that fast unless the ball landed in bounds a reasonable amount of times (not by pure luck).

Well, since you haven't taken a radar gun to your serve, you really can't say whether or not you can hit a 100+ mph serve. You can't even say that you can hit a 100 mph ball into the net. Heck, you can't really claim anything except that you think if you hit the ball as hard as you can without regard to where it lands that you can hit a 100+ mph serve. Get a radar, snap a pic, then post it and we'll see for ourselves. I don't really care whether you can or not, and I really don't care if you think I can or not. But, I am the one with the radar and I am the one with the proof that people have tried many many times to achieve 100+ mph without regard to where the ball goes and still haven't been able to do it. It's like a contest for us males to see who has the biggest... As I said before, it's harder to achieve 100+ mph than it looks. Peace!

I realize you can hit it harder when there is no regard for getting it in, but it's still a difficult feat to get to 100 mph. It's a nice feeling when you can and do it consistently, however.
 
Last edited:

boojay

Hall of Fame
I think a 20%, 111 mph serve could be quite handy at 3.0 and 3.5 levels.

Any serve that wild probably has some unsual action after bouncing that would make it hard to handle at the lower levels.

I know a guy who is 3.0-ish, plays doubles, and has about a 95mph/25% first serve that he hits with an eastern grip and quite a bit of underspin. I guess being 6'3", he gets away with this. He has an almost 100% winning rate on his frist serves. His second is very consistent, and he probably wins at least 50% of his points. Most 3.0/3.5 players fear his serve in doubles.

ooo, i never got the chance to reply to this.

you are correct, 3.0s, 3.5s, heck even 4.0s have a lot of trouble returning my first serve when it goes in. I would say the success rate is damn near 100% or at least 90%. I definitely got it in more than 20-25% of the time though. Even some 4.5s and 5.0s have trouble, unless it's a strong 5.0, then he would crush the ball right back at me. I'm not used to seeing my first serves come back, let alone come back with pace, so when I play against a strong 5.0 who likes pace, I get myself in a LOT of trouble. At that level, I either need to hit harder still, or start learning how to place the ball better and vary the type of serve. I'm betting on the latter to be the more practical approach.
 
Top