Weeks 27 & 28 - The Championships, Wimbledon (grass) - mixed doubles

Dropshot · Newbie

Weeks 27 & 28 - The Championships, Wimbledon (grass) - mixed doubles

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Dropshot wrote:
Any views on Andy's serve? Feel it has lost a lot of 'pop'. When he was younger he could serve 130mph+, even up to 135mph on occasion. Over the last couple of years that speed has come down dramatically and before he had his latest operation I did read somewhere that the injury was hampering his service action which was why he was concentrating on placement.

I had hoped that after the op his first serve speed would pick up with lack of pain etc. Watching him play at Queens and at Wimbledon this last fortnight, his fastest serve was little more than 120mph and was regularly in 110mph -120mph range. Furthermore, what's happened to the kick serve? It seems to have disappeared. Every second serve seems to be medium speed slice which is not going to cut it.

If he is going to return to the very top level he is going to have serve bigger. Not sure if it's a physical problem .....

Firstly, welcome to the board Dropshot. We like having new thoughts and opinions here. Hope you will stay around.

I haven't really looked at the serve speeds in detail, but it would not surprise me if almost all top players serve a little slower as they get older (unless your name is Isner, Karlovic or the like). Personally I have always felt that Andy's 2nd serve was more of an issue but that has (or had up until the injury) improved substantially. I haven't seen much of his comeback other than following livescores.

Pace of course isn't everything. Nobody would accuse Federer of being a serve "bot" but his placement is better than anyone and is therefore one of his biggest strengths. As for Andy, he is still very much in recovery phase, building up strength and flexibility. It may be several months before we see him back to full fitness and perhaps he will then be more confident "letting rip" on the 1st serve.

indiana · Tennis legend

telstar wrote:
Sindiana wrote:
telstar wrote:
indiana wrote:
telstar, have you ever counted up Serena's titles at singles and doubles?

She is very effective at winning which is rather the main point of the exercise.
Maybe...but why do so many want Federer to beat Nadal today? Answer is that he has style and flair. Nadal (and Williams) have neither.
Thank you for being a little clearer. You don't like her style, she is clearly not at all aethetically pleasing to you.
But you could have said that without taking up so much time saying such as she is an indifferent doubles player and that Andy ( clearly understandably still far from his best ) would have won the mixed with any of a number of top mixed doubles women.
You have effectively been going on that she is not very good. That clearly doesn't stack up and emits responses.
Now you will be far from alone in not liking her style and/or not wanting to watch her, as can be seen above. But that's very different.

She isn't very good...at playing doubles! And yes Andy would have had more chance of winning the mixed with a top woman doubles player.

-- Edited by telstar on Friday 12th of July 2019 10:28:26 PM

Well, we are clearly not going to be close to agreeing on the doubles abilites of Serena and the current Andy. But at least an apparent bit of progress from originally Andy "would have won the title with a specialist ladies doubles player!".

An issue with mixed is that clearly the man is meant to take on the major responsibility of the pair. Andy doesn't look ready to do that as fully as a women's doubles player would expect of a top doubles man. He no doubt knows this himself and sort of why he thinks he is still a fair way off being ready for singles. Arguably Serena was one of the better players he could have teamed up with in being more able and willing to step up her expected share. All in all they did fairly well to win the couple of matches they did and get as close as they did to Bruno+ ( whether or not Bruno+ then lost next round as can clearly happen ).

Hopefully Andy can continue to progress with with work on such as the serving issues pointed to above and in time get much closer to his great all court movement that he will need for any singles ambitions.

Dropshot · Newbie

Bob, accept that placement of serve is important but Andy's loss of pace on first serve is alarming. Right now he serves slower than Fed, Rafa and djoko and they all place their serve brilliantly as well. Hopefully he can start serving a bit harder as he gets stronger. He will certainly need to improve both 1st and 2nd serves to compete against those guys.

Michael D · All-time great

Dropshot wrote:
Bob, accept that placement of serve is important but Andy's loss of pace on first serve is alarming. Right now he serves slower than Fed, Rafa and djoko and they all place their serve brilliantly as well. Hopefully he can start serving a bit harder as he gets stronger. He will certainly need to improve both 1st and 2nd serves to compete against those guys.

Welcome too Dropshot! So far we've only seen Andy back playing doubles, and in Wimbledon he had more matches mixed doubles than men's doubles. I think he's been more concerned to see how he feels and to see some rhythm again than anything else. Also doubles is not as intense as singles, and so slower for Andy to regain some form of match practice. His serve may well end up slower than before once he starts playing singles again, but I don't think service speed has been the focus of his attention these last few weeks on grass. When Andy does return, as Bob also says, he will have to focus though on his second serve especially not becoming a liability again. However for now, we'll all just be watching with interest as to when/if he does make it back onto the singles court.