Worst WTA serve ever?

D

deluxe

Semi-Pro
Saw Serra Zenetti play Patty Schnyder at Wimbledon today. Wish I had a video of her service action for you. Estimate 3.5 level.

See the stats (spoiler warning - link has the score)

Serra Zenetti (ITA)
1st serve %: 71
Aces:0
Double faults: 7
Fastest serve: 70mph (!!!!)
Average 1st serve speed: 63mph (!!!!)
Average 2nd serve speed: 62mph (!!!!)
 
S

simi

Hall of Fame
Even with that, she won the first set and took the second set to a tiebreaker. Patty must have been underwhelmed to the point of not being able to concentrate . . . or believe her good luck.
 
Court_Jester

Court_Jester

Hall of Fame
You're being generous in giving her a 3.5 rating. It looked more like a patty cake to me. :p When I first saw the match on my laptop, I thought the connection was having some hiccup. But no, it was the actual speed! Damn, even I can serve much faster than her and serves are my worst stroke!
 
Court_Jester

Court_Jester

Hall of Fame
simi said:
Patty must have been underwhelmed to the point of not being able to concentrate . . . or believe her good luck.
Click to expand...
I think she got impatient with a lot of her serves so she committed lots of UEs.
 
L

LowProfile

Professional
It cannot be worse than Dementieva. It cannot. Seven double faults in a three set match is a miracle for Dementieva. Dementieva would have been lucky to hit less than seventeen doubles in a match lasting that long.

She serves pretty damn slow, but she got a lot of first serves in. The main thing is that I don't seem much difference between her first and second serves. This is both a good and a bad thing. She didn't win that many first serve points, but her second serve point percentage was nearly identical to her first serve point percentage.

Like I said, Dementieva's is still far worse. That ugly sidearmed slice. Horrid.
 
N

nswelshman

Rookie
I´ve Serra Zanetti play many times, and there is no hiding the fact it is the least penetrating serve in the top 100.

It is full stop the reason why she won´t ever be a threat to any high ranked players on the tour. But, she has good groundstrokes and feel on the ball, so if the opponent doesn´t dictate from the first point return of serve, they are NOT going to have an easy match. Not to mention, when she is returning the ball she is much stronger than on her own serve.

And it isn´t a secret that Serra Zanetti serves poorly...it is up to the opponent to take control, and this sort of pressure often causes many UE from going for too much.
 
D

Dan007

Hall of Fame
LowProfile said:
It cannot be worse than Dementieva. It cannot. Seven double faults in a three set match is a miracle for Dementieva. Dementieva would have been lucky to hit less than seventeen doubles in a match lasting that long.

She serves pretty damn slow, but she got a lot of first serves in. The main thing is that I don't seem much difference between her first and second serves. This is both a good and a bad thing. She didn't win that many first serve points, but her second serve point percentage was nearly identical to her first serve point percentage.

Like I said, Dementieva's is still far worse. That ugly sidearmed slice. Horrid.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with you. At least Zenetti's 1 serve % is high, 71%
 
8

8PAQ

Banned
JayxTheKoolest said:
I serve better than her and she's making a living off tennis. That's rather sad.
Click to expand...

What's even more sad is that Patty Schnyder wasn't able to take advantage of it.
 
emcee

emcee

Semi-Pro
ChipNCharge said:
She would still kick your *** 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

All this "pros will beat you 6-0, 6-0, 6-0" talk is way overexaggerated. If her serve was really that bad, I bet some people on this board could get a game off her.
 
GRANITECHIEF

GRANITECHIEF

Hall of Fame
Court_Jester said:
Hello? Serra Zanetti is nowhere close to Top 20. She's ranked 98.
Click to expand...

Ooops my bad, i had Schnyder in my mind with that statement. Schnyder doesn't exactly have a killer serve either.
 
M

MonkeyPox

Semi-Pro
She is a pretty decent doubles player as well. I'm sorry, there is no such thing as a terrible professional tennis player. Not in the top 100 anyway.
 
O

OwenGoal

Guest
I saw Serra-Zanetti play at this year's Wimbledon as well - as she was playing one of my fave players - Patty Schnyder.

I have to say that I was amazed by her serves, they really were so slow and her service action was most bizarre. As she was bringing her arm up to full extension everything would freeze for a moment, and then her service action would continue. Essentially her service swing was only a few inches by the time it hit the ball, which explains why it was so slow. The weirdest thing was that every now and again (like at the change of ends) she would practice her service action (as some players do) - and it was normal !

I don't know if she was injured or was suffering from a bad case of the yips - but at last year's Oz Open she managed 80 mph., and at last year's Wimbledon (where unbelievably she again played Schnyder in the first round !) she managed 86 mph (that was in her 3rd round match). Pretty poor speeds - but somewhat up on this year's showing.

But her ground strokes really were very good - good enough to have beaten Schnyder last year and to have nearly beaten her this year - although Schnyder was nowhere near at her best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
Worst WTA serve - The Video
2
Replies
62
Views
5K
goober
goober
Levi_Ackerman
In retrospect, the 2012 Australian Open – Men's Singles final is highly overrated.
Replies
39
Views
2K
NatF
NatF
R
Alcaraz second serve
Replies
37
Views
1K
Aestheticsaboveallelse
Aestheticsaboveallelse
W
Match Stats/Report - Djokovic vs Federer, Cincinnati final, 2018
Replies
13
Views
1K
TheAssassin
TheAssassin
W
Match Stats/Report - Djokovic vs Monfils, Eastbourne final, 2017
Replies
1
Views
165
Waspsting
W
Top