At my level I see a lot of people who completely mess up their first serve. I am talking about only getting the first serve in once during their typical service game. Out of 5 or 6 points only 1 or 2 serves go in. About 80% of the time it doesn’t make it into the service box. What is going on?

Most of the time, they are simply trying too hard. Or more specifically they are trying to serve too hard (ie fast). For some reason they think they can win the point cleanly on the serve. They also think their serving way better than it actually is. So not only are they making too many 1st serve mistakes but they are not keeping track of their own error rate. But the serve error rate is KEY to understanding how you are serving.

Let me explain. You cannot magically service twice as well as your current ability. The primary job of you as the server is to serve at the upper half of your ability. Not 50% or 100% more than your trained ability.

If you don’t have a 100mph serve in practice….why are you trying to do a 100mph serve in the match?

Ideally you want your serve to put the receiver under pressure but you really aren’t trying to serve an ace each time. Consider this chart….

Let’s say your serve is a 5 on Speed (eg 75mph) and 6 on accuracy (can hit within 100cm), you cannot reliably serve at a 7+8 just because you are in a match. In fact when you try and serve faster than you comfortably can during training then your accuracy will deteriorate. Trust me it happens to everyone.

The difference is, for the beginner and early improver they often have poor insight and try to push up their speed say 20% higher than normal for them. The result is their accuracy deteriorates maybe 40% and the ball rarely goes anywhere near the service box.

The biggest tell of a player serving way too hard (for their ability) is that their serve hits the bottom of the net or even the court in front of the net, or doesn’t touch the court at all on its way to the back fence.

In other words their margin or error is huge!! A strong server who serves an error, will often hit the net tape or within 50cm of the line….ie they only just miss their serve. You know next time they are likely to hit it in.

Here are some interesting serve stats that back this up. By studying 150 beginner (amateur), improver (club) and professional (elite) players, Alfred et al (2018) found that beginners made only 20–30% of their first serves but with practice players rapidly improved to 55% and then at the elite level 66%.

Also notice however beginners made a huge number of net errors. Good players make as few net errors as possible because a net error is unrecoverable. Although it sounds odd, a long serve is sometimes called in. A long serve sometimes lands in because of spin on the ball, or because of wind conditions.

66%

Remember the 66% first serve-in stat? That’s not a random number, it is the optimal percentage to force an advantage if you have two chances. To cut to the chase, you should always aim for 66% in (vs 33% out or net) on first serve.

If your error rate is much more than this (eg 50%) then you are trying to serve too fast for your ability. Slow down and you will win more points.

If your error rate is much less than this (eg you get 80% in) then you are trying to serve too easy for your ability. You have capacity to serve harder (or trade a little accuracy for speed).

Here is a preview of a little sheet I made to give more feedback on your serve stats, providing you track how your are serving.