A notational analysis of elite tennis serve and serve-return strategies on slow surface

Abstract : A notational. analysis of singles events at the French Open Grand Siam tournament was undertaken in 2005 and 2006 to characterize the game patterns and strategies of sei-ve and serve-return and to determine their influence on the point issue on a c!ay court surface. One hundred sixteen men's singles matches were video analyzed. The fiat serve (57.6%), particularly down the "T" location (50.3%), allowed servers Io win significantly more points than tlîe topspin (24.1%) and slice serves (18.3%). When the topspin was the first serve strategy, servers kept a high percentage of points won frohJ the serve (52.4%). This strategy was essentially used on the second serve (91.6%) by playing the "T" location in the deuce court and the wide zone in the,.:.advantage court. Returns ta the central zone allowed receivers to win more points {73.30/o on first serve and 65.90/o on second serve) than plays ta externat locations. The results highlight the high impact of the first shots of ail opponents on the ra\ly. Even on c!ay, the slowest court surface, serves and serve-returns remain the strokes that most influence the match results in modern tennis games.