Okay, here’s my blog post about the fastest tennis serve on record, written from my personal experience and in a casual, conversational style:
So, I got into this whole rabbit hole about tennis serves. You know, one of those random things you start wondering about late at night? I was just curious: what’s the absolute fastest a tennis ball has ever been served? I figured it’d be some crazy high number, but I wanted the specifics.
My Deep Dive into Speedy Serves
First, I hit up Google, obviously. Just typed in “fastest tennis serve” and boom – a bunch of articles popped up. That’s where I find this: The fastest serve of a tennis ball (male) is 263.44 km/h (163.7 mph) and was achieved by John Isner (USA) at a Davis Cup match in Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon, USA, on 4 March 2016.
But,I find other resources state that:The fastest tennis serve on record was hit by Australian player Sam Groth in 2012 at the Busan Open Challenger Tennis event. Groth’s serve was clocked at 263 kph (163.4 mph).
I dug a little deeper, and it turns out the ATP (the main guys in men’s professional tennis) doesn’t officially recognize serve speed records from Challenger events. They only count the ones from their main tour.
- So, Groth’s serve, while amazing, isn’t the “official” record in the ATP’s eyes.
- The ATP says John Isner’s 157.2 mph serve is the fastest they’ve officially measured.
It got me thinking about how they even measure these speeds. From what I gathered, they use radar guns, pretty similar to what police use for speeding cars. But, like, super-tuned for tennis, I guess! They have to be positioned just right to get an accurate reading.
I realized it is kind of crazy, when you think about it. Someone can hit a little ball that hard. And then someone else has to return it! Tennis players are seriously impressive.
Anyway, that’s my little journey into the world of super-fast tennis serves. Now, if you want to talk about spin, that’s a whole other can of worms…
