WTA vs ATP groundstroke speed..

[dmcb101]

Right now I am watching the Semifinal match with Maria and Woz....

Maria is hitting a ton of winners, way more than I see in mens tennis. I mean compared to Roddick who rolls them in, Maria seems to be blasting and painting the lines (obviously can't do this all time). I know this discussion has been had before, but I really think negating the serve of course of mens tennis, that rally's may not be as far off as we are always quick to say - at least in this exact case when she is in god mode.

I also know mens tennis there is much less time to set up, since there is alot more spin. Regardless...

I think if you are just comparing the "speed" then yes it is similar. The difference is in the action most men put on the ball. The ladies tend not to put as many revolutions on the ball, but I would say that the speed of the ball going over the net is relatively similar. The action off the court is another thing...

 

[dominikk1985]

I think if you are just comparing the "speed" then yes it is similar. The difference is in the action most men put on the ball. The ladies tend not to put as many revolutions on the ball, but I would say that the speed of the ball going over the net is relatively similar. The action off the court is another thing...

yes but only when we compare the hardest hitting WTA Players (serena, Maria, kvitova, keys and some more) to average hitting ATP Players.

if we look at hard hitters like stan, delpo, söderling they hit much harder than the top WTA pros and if we look at average pace WTA pros like wozniacki, radwanska, kerber they hit much softer than average ATP pro.

so if we compare WTA hardhitters to ATP grinders and ignore things like spin the average Speed might look somewhat similar.

 

[easywin]

@easywin
Sure, I know the differences in ATP/WTA technique (that clip is familiar) and I agree that men in general hit a heavier ball, with more spin. But, my point was that hitting itself is NOT the biggest difference between ATP/WTA.
People just tend to be so obsessed with the strokes, whereas in reality tennis is a MOVEMENT sport, where the player with the best court coverage and best anticipation tends to win.

That is something I can definitely agree with

 

[donquijote]

Movement is the most important but spin is huge also. Male players can open the court so much better with great angles (because of the amount of spin they put on the ball). Women mostly hit through the court. The only WTA player who hits with some good spin constantly is Stosur (FH side only obviously). Also, net clearance is noticeably higher for ATP players.

Stosur hits with ATP technique. Also as far as I know Schiavone too. It is probably not a coincidence that one won USO and the other one FO.

 

[Adi1987]

 

[Adi1987]

 

[krprunitennis2]

Any recommendations for future research?

On a serious note, how do you have time to do an APA style research project?

Thank you. This didn't take long at all. Probably an hour total. I just wanted to play with the equations and statistics on Excel to familiarize myself before I use it for small projects. It made me feel good too to somewhat quantify the speed traveled by the ball across the court between men and women - though many questions still unanswered.

It would be nice to assess more players at random in the Top 100 or so to increase the statistical power of the experiment. Quantification of the average distance traveled by each player might add some nice data too. But I think that based on the comments made by other members here, people want to measure pace difference between men and women. I'm not sure what is a good way to measure this. Perhaps have players hit an elastic sheet and measure the displacement of the ball - though this probably isn't realistic at all and has many shortcomings.


Also, just a disclaimer that I am in no way shape or form trying to make a novel discovery or statement of whether or not men and women hit the same or if men hit harder/better/faster/stronger than women. Just familiarizing with a simple program and wanted to take a stab at quantifying something.