Who had a better serve overall: Kyrgios or Arthurs?
- Thread starter zill
- Start date
dropshotlikeitshot
Professional
Depends. Which one has a more compact service motion?
zill
Legend
Both serves pretty compact I think. But the serve is not about compactness.
NonP
Legend
Have you jokers even seen a full Arthurs match? I sure didn't while he was active, and yet y'all think you can bloviate on his serve just cuz you can now glance at a few clips or look up the stats.
Anyhoo any serious fan knows Wayne is the correct answer. As @slice serve ace has demonstrated (jump to the quoted post below for a more detailed explanation) he's actually the only server since '91 who can challenge Ivo and Goran in aces/1st-serve points:
And here are Nick and a couple other servebots (DC and exos excluded):
Opelka - 32.0% (2410/7525 excluding 2021 LC)
Groth - 30.9% (1452/4706)
Johansson, J. - 29.4% (1733/5885 excluding 2005 WTC)
Kyrgios - 27.2% (3763/13,820 excluding 2017-19 & 2021 LC)
Querrey - 26.8% (8703/32,473)
Muller - 26.2% (5349/20,392)
Anderson - 24.3% (7536/30,995)
(I didn't have time to review/revise the latter threesome's #s, but the %s shouldn't be too far off the mark.)
As you can see even Opelka falls a hair short of the Ivanisevic-Arthurs-Karlovic trio. Obviously this comparison isn't foolproof as not all aces are on 1st serves and an even better (but rarer) metric is % of serves unreturned (read: all freebies), but from what little I've seen Kyrgios' median URS% is good but not sensational:
Those #s, while well above average, are almost ordinary compared to the top 50-60% range of Pistol, Goran, Ivo and Krajicek (follow the links). Plus it must be added that Nick like most of these flamethrowers doesn't face top players/returners very often, which explains Goran's slightly lower aces/1SP than Ivo's and Wayne's while the opposite also holds true for Reilly.
Now here's another caveat: Arthurs' 1st-serve % wasn't stellar even by '90s standards, so I doubt he'd be able to average close to 65% even with today's poly sticks (read: more spin). But then Kyrgios is no Isner who routinely posts 70% (if at the expense of outright freebies, as you can tell from John's surprisingly not-so-sky-high URS%), so his (presumably) superior 1st-serve % isn't likely to make up for Arthurs' commanding 6.4% advantage in aces/1SP (and probably URS%).
Besides you can tell by good old-fashioned eye test that Wayne is simply the better server. That southpaw spin does go a long way, though I do think Goran's own lefty serve was even more unreadable and dangerous.
zill
Legend
But the courts were faster back then. That would have made a huge difference to the aces/1st-serve points???
80s New Wave
Semi-Pro
Arthurs due to the advantage of being a lefty.
accidental
Hall of Fame
Arthurs had a reasonable ground/net game. If his serve was on Kyrgios’ level he would have had a better overall career imo
Kyrgios is easily top 5 on the tour over the past 6/7 years along with Karlovic, Isner, Opelka, Roanic
Kyrgios is easily top 5 on the tour over the past 6/7 years along with Karlovic, Isner, Opelka, Roanic
zill
Legend
Kyrgios was the much better player of the two though. Arthurs return was shocking hence couldn’t improve his ranking.
Agassi on Arthurs:
“He hits his serve as well as anybody, but he doesn't present much of a presence on the return game. So you feel like it's just a matter of time before you get a window or two. Some of the other guys can make themselves felt more on the return games, which puts even more pressure on you to concentrate on their serves. So there's a lot of things things going on out there."
zill
Legend
Was that because of Arthur's lefty serve or more than just that?
Tshooter
G.O.A.T.
I don’t remember the specifics of the quote. Maybe someone else remembers? I’m sure being lefty plays a part.
zill
Legend
Why do you vote Arthurs serve as better from watching? What makes you saw that? Was it more spin? His second serve seems to have a lot of side spin.
TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
Serve stats all across the board were lower in the 90s…lower first serve %’s, % of first serve points won/ditto second serves…aces, service games won etc. The game being more serve-heavy then is a convenient myth. The sticks of today make all the difference.
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zill
Legend
But the courts were faster back then.
sredna42
Hall of Fame
The wayne arthurs motto "1 - 2 - hit" is still my serve rhythm to this day
TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
That’s not reflected in the service statistics—the bottom line is that, regardless of speed of courts, the server holds more of an advantage now than ever, which is most germane to this discussion.
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NonP
Legend
As @TheFifthSet keeps telling you this is a myth that refuses to die. Three S&Vers made the SFs at '01 Wimbledon, its 1st edition with the new "slow" grass, and other '90s holdovers also did quite well there with their supposedly outdated style well into the '00s. And every service stat but DF has been creeping up ever since. Even if the courts are indeed slower today - which has never been proven, BTW, contrary to the endless talking points - it's undeniable that the extra spin from today's sticks has more than compensated for the slowdown factor.
You've got it exactly backwards. While Nick's ground game is usually nothing to write home about he still wins 15.8% of his (career) return games, vs. Arthurs' rock-bottom 10.0% which is Groth/Isner/Opelka territory (10.4%/10.3%/10.0%) and just barely above Karlovic's 8.5% (the absolute lowest since '91 and probably in the entire OE). To put this in perspective that 5.8% gap is about the same distance between Fed (26.6%) and Roddick (20.3%), with of course 19 majors separating the two.
And even your last sentence is debatable. Kyrgios having played almost 3 times as many 1st-serve points as Groth would seem to indicate that he's faced more top opposition, and the ATP indeed tells us they faced off against top 10 players 37 (winning 21) and 9 (losing 'em all!) times respectively. But then compare Nick's 21-37 vs. the top 10 with these guys' records, followed by % of matches vs. the top 20 (expanded cuz rankings were rather unreliable before the current standardized era)*/all career matches:
Federer - 223-123 (64.6%), 542/1556 (34.8%)
Isner - 28-74 (27.5%), 165/740 (22.3%)
Raonic - 30-67 (30.9%), 146/547 (26.7%)
Anderson - 19-72 (20.9%), 151/597 (25.3%)
Querrey - 23-66 (25.8%), 168/700 (24%)
Karlovic - 21-62 (25.3%), 143/717 (19.9%)
Kyrgios - 21-37 (36.2%), 85/271 (31.4%)
Muller - 12-44 (21.4%), 99/446 (22.2%)
Opelka - 7-10 (41.2%), 33/130 (25.4%)
Groth - 0-9 (0%), 20/100 (20%)
*TA's stats for active players aren't completely up to date, but the %s of career matches vs. the top 20 matches shouldn't be far off the mark. Also I would've liked to expand the range to top 30 cuz of the specialization factor of yore - FYI Rafter was ranked only 21st going into '00 Wimbledon, which everyone knows did not reflect his true standing on grass - but TA's next option is top 50 which is too large.
Now Nick's 31.4% vs. the top 20 is well above the average for his fellow servebots - which does reinforce the widespread view that he's got more upside and wasting his talent - but still clearly below Fed's 34.8%. And how does he compare to previous GSOAT candidates? Let's see:
Sampras - 124-71 (63.6%), 336/984 (34.1%)
Ivanisevic - 60-76 (44.1%), 236/932 (25.3%)
Roddick - 37-73 (33.6%), 189/825 (22.9%)
Ljubicic - 40-70 (36.4%), 183/725 (25.2%)
Krajicek - 44-54 (44.9%), 164/630 (26.0%)
Philippoussis - 24-52 (31.6%), 128/517 (24.8%)
Arthurs - 8-23 (25.8%), 56/292 (19.2%)
Johansson, J. - 4-7 (36.4%), 23/131 (17.6%)
As you can see every one of these guys but Wayne and Pim Pim played top 10/20 guys more often, and it's probable that the average ranking of Nick's opponents is higher, especially given his inconsistency. And Pistol's % vs. the top 20 still beats Nick's by almost 3 percentage points, which is hardly surprising given their career trajectories.
That's why Fed features on my definitive GSOAT list while Kyrgios doesn't. As a pure shot Nick's serve is most likely better, but that don't mean a thing unless he can swing it when necessary and that's where Fed comes out on top. And get this: Sampras won an average 45% of his serves as outright freebies in his 18 Slam finals (47% if we take only the 14 finals he won). Hard to imagine Kyrgios coming anywhere close to that under pressure vs. similar opponents.
Now you could say, not unfairly, that this logic doesn't apply to Arthurs, but his 6.4% lead in the freebie department is just too big to be explained away by pointing to Nick's superior opposition. Plus it's no coincidence that both Wayne and Goran are southpaws whose lefty spin helps offset Ivo's considerable size advantage. And say what you still about Karlovic's serve but disguise isn't one of his strengths. Arthurs', OTOH, is among the most unreadable ever (if perhaps not quite in Goran's class), and while Nick is no slouch himself he must yield to his countryman here.
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