Tsitsipas Serve: Critically Flawed or Critical Difference that Works?

[jimlosaltos]

Let's add a link to see his serve, this is a good 8 minute highlight video from the Tsitisipas-Rafa quarter in Melbourne, AO21

https://youtu.be/9bAH7BSQIR0

[jimlosaltos]

And some more examples, all from AO21/Infosys.

So, we have a 130 mph flat up the T, slice short and wide at 118 mph, Ace up the T 126 mph with slice, and a 121 mph kicker, short and wide to the Ad court.

Only thing I don't see here is an underhand serve <g>.



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[jimlosaltos]

I'm curious what TPN readers think of ESPN commentary on Stefanos Tsitsipas's serve.

Short version: ESPN showed Tsitsipas's "service toss cluster" during his 5 set win over Nadal in the Aussie quarters. It is less a "cluster" than a 4 foot long arc of alternatives.

I've never seen anything like that on the pro level (in my backyard, yes, the pro level no). Brad Gilbert said it was bad because opponents can read where he is going to serve. I don't have a dog in this fight, but Rafa certainly couldn't read the Greek's serve, in part because he can hit multiple serves on out of many (all?) locations. Later when I asked BG directly online he seemed more concerned with velocity, saying he should just toss at 12 o'clock and go for big serves.

Here are a few images that might help catalyze a discussion. First, a 51 inch toss "cluster"

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Suggestion: Before prejudging him, let's look at the results. I've sorted this ATP serving ranking table on "Percent of Service Games Won", and Tsitsipas comes in at 86.5%, which ranks an excellent 9th in the world. Is this indicative of a serve that needs change?

On the other hand, his first serve points won is 29th (third column), which argues that, with his power, he could earn more free points.

Note: Tsitsipas has NONE of the second serve inconsistencies that sometimes plague Zverev and Rublev. So, his toss variations do NOT make him inconsistent. In fact, Tsitsi ranked 5th in second serve points won, ahead of Djokovic. His first serve percentage is in mid 60s, like most of the non-7-footers that have good serves.

Hmmm. I can't seem to get this one to show at a larger size, so here's a link in case:
https://www.atptour.com/en/stats/lea...ormerNo1=false

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And I'll throw these in, all taken from AO's Infosys Court View. You can see that Tsitsipas can hit all four corners with first and second serves and he can hit most every variety of serve: Fast, slice, kick. In particularly, Tsitsipas got a shank return from Rafa on a kicker in the front half of the box at 93 mph that bounced so high and hard that Rafa leapt to reach it and couldn't. The only people I can think of, off hand, that could hit that serve are Isner, Opelka, and young Milos.

This first image shows Tsitsipas's first serve locations for the entire match. The subsequent images show serves with location, path, type of spin, length of the resulting rally, and velocity.

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