Who has the best serve on the circuit currently?

Who has the best serve on the circuit currently?

  • Zverev

    Votes: 7 9.5%
  • Berrettini

    Votes: 3 4.1%
  • Perricard

    Votes: 30 40.5%
  • Hurkacz

    Votes: 21 28.4%
  • Fritz

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Shelton

    Votes: 10 13.5%
  • Humbert

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Tsitsipas

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Auger-Aliassime

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Total voters
    74

Winner Sinner

Semi-Pro
Who has the best serve on the circuit currently?

The best serverbot on the current circuit, live or die, the choice is yours, play your game.
 
Alcaraz probably has the best "service game" because Djokovic couldn't break him at the Olympics.
Ability to hold your serve is the most important thing in tennis!
Ability to hit the service shot itself, doesn't win you slams.... and that's why the biggest servers never win slams...
 

JMR

Hall of Fame
Alcaraz probably has the best "service game"

You know that's not the question he's asking, so why give that answer? It seems kind of churlish. "Best serve" is a tennis question that's been around forever. Who cares whether the player with the supposed best serve can win slams or not? We already have thousands of slam threads. Alcaraz doesn't have to be a contender in every discussion.
 

Rovesciarete

Hall of Fame
Quite clearly Hurkacz?

Hubi is imho the best server over the last years and is in my ‘very tall’ (195-200 cm) category. He gets far less help from his forehand compared to Berrettini. Struff is also high up. This graph shows where Hubi, Janni and the tour make hay.

spw-js-super.png


We need more Perricard matches and see how the tour reacts to his special serve sauce.
 
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Jonas78

Legend
Hubi is imho the best server over the last years and is in my ‘very tall’ (195-200 cm) category. He gets far less help from his forehand compared to Berrettini. Struff is also high up. This graph shows where Hubi, Janni and the tour make hay.

spw-js-super.png


We need more Perricard matches and see how the tour reacts to his special serve sauce.
Exactly. The more shots, the more baseline-skills comes into play. Federer isnt among the best servers in history, and Nadal isnt among the best returners. When you look at 1st SPW/RPW and especially 2nd SPW/RPW you look more at baseline-skills than serve/return skills.
 

Jonas78

Legend
Sinner is #1 for “% service games won” followed by:

2. Berretini
3. Zverev
4. Hurkacz
5. Fritz
6. Shelton
7. Nakashima
8. Dimitrov
9. Djokovic
10. Rublev

Service games won isnt a good metric for best serve. See @Rovesciarete 's post.

Federer is higher than Karlovic on service games won, not because of the serve, but because of the superior baseline-skills after the serve. Its like when some claim Nadal is the best returner of all time, because of his return points won on clay.
 
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Rovesciarete

Hall of Fame
Exactly. The more shots, the more baseline-skills comes into play. Federer isnt among the best servers in history, and Nadal isnt among the best returners. When you look at 1st SPW/RPW and especially 2nd SPW/RPW you look more at baseline-skills than serve/return skills.

Indeed, the high 2nd SPW percentage of Sinner and Alcaraz relative to the 1st in combination with their very high RPW gave me a couple of years ago big confidence in their potential. Even Sinner has arguably a weaker first serve compared to his height group.

Federer really made a big performance jump once he unlocked his serve plus game, moving later away from serve&volley to serve&forehand.
 

Winner Sinner

Semi-Pro
Kyrgios is supposed to be coming back. Best serve or not he should be in contention on the list...
Yes, but we haven't seen him play for two years, how can we say he's still one of the best if there's no evidence?
Given that for me Kyrgios will have one of the best services even at 40 years old, however the survey is based on the moment, therefore not on the past nor on what could be.


Rather I could have included Raonic, who although he is more in the infirmary than on the pitch, the few times he has played this year he has shown that he has an elite service. I remember the match with Sinner in Rotterdam before retiring where the Italian had a lot of difficulty finding the key to the problem in response.
 

Terenigma

G.O.A.T.
Purely based on an eye test this year I would say its been between Zverev and Fritz honestly. In-form they've both looked pretty beastily on serve this year. Sinner too obviously but his doesn't stand out as much.
 

MisterP

Hall of Fame
Im a little reluctant to include a player that just recently was a challenger tour player, has no top10 wins, and never has reached a QF on 500+. How many decent returners has he played?
You don’t have to be the one to (reluctantly or otherwise) make that decision. The stats speak for themselves. He’s in 6th place for overall serve rating.

You guys are debating this like the data isn’t just sitting right there in front of you.

 

GRASScaraz

Professional
You don’t have to be the one to (reluctantly or otherwise) make that decision. The stats speak for themselves. He’s in 6th place for overall serve rating.

You guys are debating this like the data isn’t just sitting right there in front of you.

The data is obviously biased. In no way does Sinner have a better first serve than Perricard
 
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Jonas78

Legend
You don’t have to be the one to (reluctantly or otherwise) make that decision. The stats speak for themselves. He’s in 6th place for overall serve rating.

You guys are debating this like the data isn’t just sitting right there in front of you.

He mainly played challengers up to april, and has played very few top players, so the stats are of course affected by that. But i agree serve rating on leaderboard is probably a good metric. Karlovic/Isner is on top career wise so it makes sense. I dont know how its measured, but it doesnt makes sense to put Federer on 8th, with an average ace/match on 7.8

Perricard might be the best server on tour, just think its a little early to tell yet.
 
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Rovesciarete

Hall of Fame
Yeah i would like to know how its calculated. How do you put a player with an average of 7.5 ace/match higher than a player with 17.9? It certainly overvalues baseline-skills and I dont know how DFs/match affects it.

No bias obviously as the index hasn‘t changed a lot if at all but the label ’serve leader‘ isn‘t precise and if you synthesise a lot of factors into a single number you obviously lose nuance.

The insight algorithm gives Sinner the best forehand and backhand in the game but only the 38th best serve quality*:

GXCIw2oXQAAvJk8


In short Sinner has now the strongest serve plus in the game because there is no safe place for a decent return, as his follow-up is elite from basically every area of the court. His number 1 in conversion is the result of rarer attacks finished very efficiently.

GMP is by far the better server although we will how he stacks up in the long run against the best returners. We should see quite a bit of experimentation with the return position. As pure servers I would put over at least ten players very clearly above Jannik.

*He reduces - like Alcaraz btw - his serve risk against weaker base-liners so their values might understate their prowess.
 
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Winner Sinner

Semi-Pro
The young Frenchman Perricard has reached a historic milestone: 500 aces in just 29 matches, with an average of around 17 aces per match. To understand the scope of this achievement, just compare it to some of the greatest servants in recent history:
– John Isner: 31 matches to reach 500 aces
– Milos Raonic: 32 matches
– Nick Kyrgios: 33 matches
 

MisterP

Hall of Fame
Yeah i would like to know how its calculated. How do you put a player with an average of 7.5 ace/match higher than a player with 17.9? It certainly overvalues baseline-skills and I dont know how DFs/match affects it.
Because of the other stats. He has over twice the aces as Sinner but he also hits almost three times as many double faults as Sinner. His second serve points won % are garbage compared to everyone else.
 

Jonas78

Legend
No bias obviously as the index hasn‘t changed a lot if at all but the label ’serve leader‘ isn‘t precise and if you synthesise a lot of factors into a single number you obviously lose nuance.

The insight algorithm gives Sinner the best forehand and backhand in the game but only the 38th best serve quality*:

GXCIw2oXQAAvJk8


In short Sinner has now the strongest serve plus in the game because there is no safe place for a decent return, as his follow-up is elite from basically every area of the court. His number 1 in conversion is the result of rarer attacks finished very efficiently.

GMP is by far the better server although we will how he stacks up in the long run against the best returners. We should see quite a bit of experimentation with the return position. As pure servers I would put over at least ten players very clearly above Jannik.

*He reduces - like Alcaraz btw - his serve risk against weaker base-liners so their values might understate their prowess.
Exactly!

And this is why every perfect baseliner with a solid ground game will have both excellent stats on 2nd SP win and 2nd SPR win, like for example Rafa or Sinner. Not because their are among the greatest servers or returners, but because they have the most solid ground game.
 

nolefam_2024

Talk Tennis Guru
Servebot category is dying.
Hurkacz is borderline servebot but Perricard is total.


Honestly people choosing Hurkacz were ONLY doing so because last 2/3 years the BOTS were almost gone.

Perricard has completely brought BOT category back now. He might go on to have best serve of all time. Dude is scary. If not all time, definitely for next decade.
 

The Green Mile

Bionic Poster
Because of the other stats. He has over twice the aces as Sinner but he also hits almost three times as many double faults as Sinner. His second serve points won % are garbage compared to everyone else.
That's what happens when you average 125-130 mph on your second serve lol, I think we can be a little bit lenient on his double numbers. The fact that he only averages 5-6 DFs a match is incredible. Actually only went over 3 DFs once in Basel this week.
 

GloW

Professional
Alcaraz probably has the best "service game" because Djokovic couldn't break him at the Olympics.
Ability to hold your serve is the most important thing in tennis!
Ability to hit the service shot itself, doesn't win you slams.... and that's why the biggest servers never win slams...
the same could be said with djokovic idot
 
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