Tennis serve performances at break points: Approaching practice patterns for coaching

Tennis comprises specific match situations when winning the next point is crucial. These big points can decide about a win or loss and, thus, reasonably arouse mental stress. Break points are considered as big points and the outcome is influenced by, among a variety of other factors, the serve, which is well accepted being one of the dominant strokes in Men´s tennis. In this study we examined the serve behaviour for male players in the Wimbledon tournament 2016 to investigate possible impacts of presumed mental stress within the situation of break points, and further, if winning players perform better than losing players. A total of 28.843 points were analysed and divided into break points (BP; n=2.035) and non-break points – referred to as regular points (RP; n=26.808). It was shown that players win less points with their first serve at BP (65.91 ± 27.21) compared to RP (73.44 ± 9.40) and that players serve faster on their first (118.36 ±7.09 to 117.01 ± 5.43 mph) and slower on their second serves (95.44 ± 7.75 to 97.97 ± 6.79 mph) when facing BP compared to RP. The most important difference between winning and losing players is the winning percentage at 2nd serve, whereas winning players are even able to win more points when facing BP, while losing players cannot maintain their level.