What It’s Like to Face a 150 M.P.H. Tennis Serve [video]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/10/sports/tennis/facing-a-150-mph-tennis-serve.html

by geoka9 • 11 years ago

60 14 11 years ago

tdicola• 11 years ago

That's great! What's changed in the last 30 years that serves are so much faster? Racket design? Balls? How we measure the serve?

Encosia4• 11 years ago

From McEnroe's era to now, the biggest difference is the materials used to make the racquets, which allows them to be stiffer, lighter, and have a larger head all at the same time. All three of those things contribute to how much power you can generate on a serve.

GeneralMayhem• 11 years ago

I'm sure it's all of those, but also better players with better training. Most of the best athletes in history are probably currently playing in most sports, as a result of better training, better nutrition, and a larger population to select from.

geoka93• 11 years ago

Several factors:

Rackets - they got more forgiving and powerful. I think even Mac now serves faster with a modern graphite racket than he did 30 years ago with a wooden one.

Strings - with the invention of polyester strings which snap back after "gripping" the ball during the stroke, the amount of top spin applied to the ball has gone through the roof. That means players can string their rackets at lower tensions, allowing even more power on their strokes (including the serve).

Overall physical fitness and training standards of pro tennis players - today's top tennis players are simply better athletes.

icelancer• 11 years ago

This pretty much covers it. These factors also radically transformed how the game is actually played, too. Mostly gone are the defensive counter-attackers like Michael Chang due to incredible pace that ground strokes are hit; winners are routinely hit from beyond the baseline. Such a concept was rare just 20 years ago when Chang was world rank 2.

For some beautiful writing on the subject, the ever eloquent David Foster Wallace is someone to look up.

Encosia4• 11 years ago

Poly definitely changed the game in many ways, but not as much when it comes to fast serves. Even strung in the 40lb range, poly strings generate much less power than gut. You'll find that most of the big servers still use gut in the crosses (and they'd probably use all gut if they could just hit serves and no groundstrokes).

eweise• 11 years ago

I just watched 7 days in hell where he serves 174 mph. Just incredible!

minionslave• 11 years ago

This is pretty interesting. It shows how much specialized a human can get at doing something. It truly is the closest thing we've got to superheroes.

rawnlq• 11 years ago

There was a post a month ago on how to write an app to measure serve speed using computer vision:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9611298

oluckyman• 11 years ago

My nephew played in a minor tournament that Sam Groth won a couple of years ago. He said Groth did a second serve kicker that bounced over his opponent and continued over the back fence.

What It’s Like to Face a 150 M.P.H. Tennis Serve [video]

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