Is Federer's second serve one of the best of all time ?

One shot that I think is really under-appreciated is the Federer second serve.
His first serve is of course deadly, but you could argue that huge servers such as Isner and Karlovic have bigger first serves.

On the second serve however, I think the placement and kick Federer can generate puts him right up there with anyone. So often we see players try and attack the Federer second serve, but to get knocked over by the spin and kick of the ball. When players do get it back in play it's also normally a short ball, which can be attacked by Federer. He also barely double faults as well, which gives him a lot of confidence to place it exactly where he wants to on the second serve.

Federer is a great server. Many players are considered great servers because they can wack the ball hard. Federer's serve strength is his accuracy. He can hit the spots. He's able to do this with his first serve so it's not surprising when he takes a bit of speed off he can keep the accuracy.

People talk about Feds grace and miracle shots a lot. Its his serve and his ability to nail it when its most important thats the cornerstone of his success. Like Pete his second serve is full of bite and placement, and he knows when he needs to crank it to keep his opponent off.

Murray. Next question!

I absolutely agree because he is not rated among the BIG servers his serve is not appreciated... but his placement and accuracy are incredible and for the most part (unless having a really bad day) he gets himself out of a corner and uses it particularly well in a tie break situation

Despite the Todd Martin episode, Djokovic also is under appreciated in the serving department.

Murray's second serve is abysmal. Mauresmo needs to work on that a lot, IMO.

Yes, Andy should take a few serving lessons from Serena.

Fed, maybe on top 5 servers, consistent, not anywhere near the second best ever, and has totally melted at times.

But, maybe best ever player, that serve have saved his matches in crucial points?

Murrays serve is all about the low air speed, its slow and consequently ends up short... and slow. He needs more spin on it, soo he can accelerate more.

Isner all day long as the best server I have seen. Yes he has size and strength on his side, but the fact he has a ridiculous variation on his first and second serves makes him almost unplayable.

Good article. Was thinking this watching today. Players like Murray talk about getting free points off their serve. I think that Federer must get more than most and it is not just his first serve as the OP points out. His second serve consistently sets him up to get easy points as well.

Murrays second serve is greatly under-appreciated. True, it lacks pace, depth, placement and much spin but I've seen it reduce grown men to tears.

Federers is a triumph of technique and confidence. To put it where he does, the way he does, so often is testimony to extreme reliability. The fact that he refuses to compromise on a rare bad day just underpins the belief and determination lying behind it.

It doesn't count when those grown men are Lendl and Murray though.

Haddie-nuff wrote:I absolutely agree because he is not rated among the BIG servers his serve is not appreciated... but his placement and accuracy are incredible and for the most part (unless having a really bad day) he gets himself out of a corner and uses it particularly well in a tie break situation

I think these days it gets more attention - when he was thrashing everyone left and right, the forehand took all the plaudits, but over time (2010 onwards) both his serve and movement have come to be more appreciated. Agree with you though, it doesn't get as rated as much as it does. Maybe when his career ends and people see the mind-boggling ace numbers?

Taking size into account, he's probably only superseded by Isner, Raonic (not today!) and Karlovic - of the top players, he's easily the best server across both serves. He usually tops the second serve rankings most years.

LF is right too, Novak has an excellent serve.

Silver wrote:

Haddie-nuff wrote:I absolutely agree because he is not rated among the BIG servers his serve is not appreciated... but his placement and accuracy are incredible and for the most part (unless having a really bad day) he gets himself out of a corner and uses it particularly well in a tie break situation

I think these days it gets more attention - when he was thrashing everyone left and right, the forehand took all the plaudits, but over time (2010 onwards) both his serve and movement have come to be more appreciated. Agree with you though, it doesn't get as rated as much as it does. Maybe when his career ends and people see the mind-boggling ace numbers?

Taking size into account, he's probably only superseded by Isner, Raonic (not today!) and Karlovic - of the top players, he's easily the best server across both serves. He usually tops the second serve rankings most years.

LF is right too, Novak has an excellent serve.

Djokovic's serve was liability for two seasons due to the change he tried to make in his technique. It is now better than it ever was. In particular he has a fearsome second serve kick and great disguise on his action with very good placement. But he is not really a 130s server he doesn't burn up the charts in the mphs.

Federer is actually quite similar although he places his serve just that little bit finer in terms of getting them in corners, he is another player that gets the job done with variety, disguise, and placement as opposed to mphs. To me his second is a wonderful delivery. Neither guy has the huge miles per hour on their serve that you see from Isner, Raonic, etc.

Federer has a wonderful serve. Not just technically very good but, bar one or two notable exceptions, nearly always reliable at key moments and big points.

And I agree with Socal, Silver and LF. Djokovic's serve has improved enormously over the last couple of years. His placement is outstanding. I'd say he has the third best serve in the top ten, behind Raonic and Federer.

Check the stats and you'll see that Fed serves very few double faults - about one and half a match on average. That must help enormously.

Murdoch the fact is that on the serve your placement and variety is so much more important than miles per hour. If you hit a good slice serve with a lot of cut to it you can ace the best returners with a serve well under 100 miles an hour, and if you hit a mid box serve with ok depth at the guys forehand at 130 he can smash it right back at you for a winner. That is what both Fed and Djoko have on serve that is quite unique, fed even more so in that he really is machine like in how he clips the edges of the box and mixes it up.

I wouldn't rate Djokovic as a top three or even a top five serve as of yet Murdoch mostly because he does still average a brain fart service game every set or two more because of poor transitional play and errors on the forehand, plus he doesn't quite get the free points of other big servers. But no question he is top 10 in that regard especially when you factor in the quality of his second serve which is as good as any in the game. He just plays a loose service game here and there in each and every match for me to put him top 5 or top 3.

It's been a while since I crunched some numbers, so here are some service stats for selected members of the top ten.

Raonic has the best serve numbers by some distance but Cilic's are also excellent.

It seems I have over-rated Djokovic's serve! (At least as a shot in its own right. As a device to ultimately win the point, it works very well).

[/tr]

	Cilic	Berdych	Raonic	Djokovic	Federer	Murray
Aces	733	597	1093	415	611	436
DFs	197	190	204	101	113	192
Net ”free” points (aces minus DFs)	536	407	889	314	498	244
Service games played	876	894	878	861	973	917
”Free” points per game	0.61	0.46	1.01	0.36	0.51	0.27
Aces per DF	3.7	3.1	5.4	4.1	5.4	2.3
% service points won	67	68	72	69	71	65

Super stats HM

Good numbers. I think Federers serve gets most of its points for when it hits the spot, rather than how many times in a match

Presumably those are this season's stats. Murray's numbers are pretty poor, and I'm sure would be better for 2012 and 2013.

Would be interesting to add unreturned serves and (if possible) the number of times each player wins the point with the third shot, as both of these are significant in how effective the serve is. I would guess Fed and Djoko don't get a huge number of aces but have a lot of unreturned serves when their opponent just nicks the ball (serve being 'slow' enough for them to react to, as opposed to Raonic who has hit it by you before you move).

One thing I picked up on those stats is that Roger is almost 6 to 1 aces to DFs, that is freaking amazingly good. Next Raonic is 5 to 1 and then surprise surprise Djokovic at 4 to 1 aces to df ratio. Shows you the ease and control Federer has on his service motion. He hits aces without trying to kill the ball and get out of his comfort zone.

dummy_half - yes, they are this year's stats.

Socal - That's a good stat. I've added them to the table.

HM, can you add Nadal to the table please, cheers

I don't like how Federer has speeded up his service action ( I think it was about 2 years ago). It adds to the feeling that he just wants to get on with the match and doesn't care as much about the result as he used to. I know this isn't relevant to the topic but just wondered if it bothers anyone else

Karlovic was the player to hold the highest percentage of service games.
Who's got a better second serve ?

Federer or Karlovic/Isner/Raonic ?
Taller players can get more kick, but then again Federer when he's on fire with his serve can make it kick up like a anaconda.

Fantastic stats HM. Was this from every 2014 tournament up to and including Paris?