01-07-2025
Wimbledon: The servebots need a new trick to win
Mumbai: There was a deafening thud. Then a deft touch. The thud fetched a collective awe. The touch earned the point. France's Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard dished a 153 mph serve — it was the fastest in Wimbledon history. (REUTERS)
This is the story of a 6'8' giant throwing down the gauntlet in the form of the fastest serve ever recorded in Wimbledon history, and yet, losing the point. This is also the story of modern-day tennis, across gender, where possessing a powerful serve alone may not hand you the match on a platter.
In the opening game of his first-round match against Taylor Fritz on Monday, Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard smoked a 153mph shot off his racquet that might as well have been a bazooka. It broke the record for the fastest serve ever recorded in the history of tennis' oldest Grand Slam, comfortably going past Tayor Dent's previous mark of 148mph set in 2010. It was eye-popping. What happened after that, though, was more business as usual.
Fritz responded to that sizzling body serve with an ice-cool forehand chip. The return sent Perricard scrambling sideways to loop the ball back into play. Two shots later, Fritz won the point. Electric start, easy end. Ditto the match that Fritz won 6-7(6), 6-7(8), 6-4, 7-6(6), 6-4 across two days.
The point, and the match itself, is emblematic of the modern game. Even at Wimbledon, where one-strike monsters once feasted on those faster grass courts.
Goran Ivanisevic would blaze through his 2001 Wimbledon triumph as a wildcard relying largely on his lightning left-handed serve. Across his seven singles final wins at the All England Club, Pete Sampras would drop just four service games from his total 131, as per the Wimbledon Compendium. The John Isner-Nicolas Mahut 2010 marathon, among the most iconic contests at Wimbledon, would feature a combined 216 aces. Isner served 113 of them, the highest in a singles match till date.
Isner also holds the record for the most aces by a man in a single Championships – 214 in 2018. Serena Williams has the women's record (102 in 2012). Last year, Perricard topped the aces count among men and Elena Rybakina among the women. The number: 115 and 39, respectively. A drastic dip. Perricard exited in the fourth round, Rybakina in the semi-final.
The reliance and reward of a powerful serve as the biggest weapon is hardly as rich as before. If it were, the likes of Isner, Ivo Karlovic and Reilly Opelka, the fastest servers the men's game has seen in the last decade, would have fancied a singles Grand Slam title. Only Isner has made as far as the semi-final among the three.
On the ATP's serve leaderboard – it takes into account the overall service quality including first serves, second serves and aces – of the past 52 weeks, Perricard sits on top ahead of Fritz, Alexander Zverev and Matteo Berrettini. Neither has a major trophy. It takes Jannik Sinner for a Slam champion to emerge on that list at fifth place.
Several factors have contributed to this serve slide. The courts, even those freshly-minted greens at SW19, have increasingly gotten slower over the years. The balls tend to vary from tournament to tournament, the lack of uniformity bringing an extra variable at play. Baseliners have taken over, irrespective of the surface, with greater attention to a more solid all-round game.
No better than the Big Three of men's tennis to exemplify that, individually and collectively. Roger Federer had a 21-3 win-loss record against Andy Roddick, who flaunted a big serve as his USP. Federer had a bigger serve from the trio, but Novak Djokovic, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, and 22-time Slam winner Rafael Nadal also often made light work of the servebots.
More recent proof of the first strike invariably not having the final say, even on grass? The 2023 and 2024 Wimbledon champion is Carlos Alcaraz, the Spaniard carrying the serve as his game's weaker facet.
