I took a video of my serve (60 FPS) and it took 0.4 seconds from my racket to the service line. How fast would you say my serve was?
10.06.2025 08:13
The speed of a tennis ball is generally measured right off the racket, and it’s only going to slow down, not speed up. That said, a tennis ball that comes off the racket face at, say, 115 mph is going to get to the receiver sooner than a ball hit at, say, 100 mph, notwithstanding that both will slow before getting to the receiver.
At most tournaments, the speed of a serve is commonly measured and draws comment if it’s unusually fast or slow. But think about a tennis ball and when it’s going xxx mph. Where exactly is it going xxx mph?
I don’t know, but I do know some other things about the serve in general.
In fact, the ball flexes throughout its flight. In other words, some portion of the energy imparted by the racke...
There are two major factors that slow the ball. One is the flexibility of the ball itself. If you’ve ever seen a photo of a ball at the instant of impact, you can see that the diameter of the ball increases because the impact flattens out the ball.