Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Fastest recorded tennis serves

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads

This article lists the fastest record serve speeds for men's and women's professional tennis.

The fastest recorded serve is by Sam Groth, at 263.4 km/h (163.7 mph) at a Challenger event.[1] The fastest recorded serve at an ATP event was by John Isner, at 253.0 km/h (157.0 mph) in the first round of the 2016 Davis Cup. [2]

This list is not historically complete. There are reports from the 1920s, at a time when service motions were regulated differently (with mandatory one foot on the ground), that Bill Tilden had a serve that was clocked at 262.81 km/h (163.3 mph) but there is nothing to verify that.[3] "Big Bill" Tilden also delivered another serve claimed to be officially measured at 163.61 mph (73.14 m/s / 263.30 km/h) in 1931. Britain's Mike Sangster had a serve allegedly timed at 154 mph (247.84 km/h) in 1963. Ellsworth Vines was clocked at 128 mph (206 km/h) and his 1930s contemporary Lester Rollo Stoeten sent down a serve timed at 131 mph (210.82 km/h). Also, Ellsworth Vines in the Wimbledon finals of 1932 clocked 194.73 km/h (121 mph) (without Radar).[4] The fastest serve claimed to be scientifically timed was the 137 mph (220.48 km/h) serve from Scott Carnahan at Los Angeles in 1976. Udayachand Shetty's winning serve was clocked by radar at 193.12 km/h (120 mph) using a wooden racquet, at the Gilbey Gins fast serve contest held in Chicago on 24 July 1976.[5] This qualified him to take part in the finals at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills Queens on 20 August 1976. Colin Dibley won the event with a serve of 209.21 km/h (130 mph).[6] Then in 1981 a West German lawn tennis coach and statistician, Horst Goepper, claimed a serving speed of 199.53 mph (321.11 km/h) during a test in Weinheim.[7]

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard with a 237 km/h (147.3 mph) second serve in the first round of 2025 Wimbledon Championships, holds the record for the fastest second serve ever recorded.[8]

Criteria to be listed in this article
  • Men's serves must be recorded at or over 230 km/h (142.9 mph) minimum standard speed.
  • Women's serves must be recorded at or over 200 km/h (124.3 mph) minimum standard speed.[9]
  • Only one serve per player is recorded here. For example, Andy Roddick has several 225.3 km/h (140 mph) or faster serves on his record but only his personal best of 249 km/h (155 mph) is included.[10]
  • In cases where more than one serve has been recorded at the same speed, the oldest recorded serve is listed first.
Remove ads

Men

Key
W  F  SF QF #R RRQ# DNQ A NH
(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did not qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) strike rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss record.
  Not recognized by ATP
  Unsourced or unverified
More information Rank, Player ...
  1. [1]
    He has a recorded serve speed of 4,718 km/h (2,932 mph) according the ATP tour match statistics against Rafael Nadal in the 2022 Italian Open, but this record is assumed to be a recording error.[14]
  2. [2]
    His fastest verified serve clocked in at 149.3 mph (240 km/h) in the 2013 Davis Cup and he produced a 150.4 mph (242 km/h) serve during his run in the 2012 Paris Masters, but it was a let.[17]
  3. [3]
    He had a recorded speed of 242.0 km/h (150 mph) at 2018 Wimbledon, but officials revoked the reading due to errors with the radar gun.[40]
Remove ads

Women

Summarize
Perspective

The WTA doesn't keep official serve speed rankings of its own for all its events for a variety of reasons—mainly that serve speed isn't captured on every court at every tournament, and sometimes the technology being used isn't consistent from event to event. The Women's Tennis Association does have an external partner that it officially recognizes which measures and maintains serve speed data at selected number of events. It does not recognize at all, nor keep tabs of speed records set outside the main draw phase of WTA Tour tournaments. Therefore, serve speeds recorded from the qualifying phase of WTA tournaments are not added to the official WTA serve speed statistics. Also WTA tournament serve speeds recorded by different measurement systems or brands (at the discretion of the host or organizer) that are not using technology provided by ATP/WTA's official supplier or partner (currently SMT/IDS), or speeds recorded at any of the non-WTA professional women's tournaments such as the ITF Women's Circuit, the Fed Cup, and Olympics tennis are not added to WTA's official list of records.

  Not recognized by WTA
More information Rank, Player ...
  1. [1]
    "IDS (Information and Display Systems) only collects serve speed data on show courts at certain events (11 in 2014) and started doing so in 1989 ... Players who have had multiple Top 10 fastest serves only have their top one listed, and if they hit that top speed multiple times, just the first time they did it is listed." http://www.wtatennis.com/news/article/1978722/title/ids-serve-speed-leaders Archived 2016-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
Remove ads

See also

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads
Remove ads