Talk:Fastest recorded tennis serves

More information needed?

the article on Ivo Karlovic names him as having a 153 mph serve, which is not reflected here. Just wondering if there might be other serves that should be also listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.180.99 (talk) 04:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy

This is a discussion I’ve previously raised on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis although we didn’t come up with a solution there.

There seems to be quite a few serves missing in the men’s section [1] [2] [3]. There are probably others, I think Phillipoussis, Dent and Rusedski have hit 140+ quite a few times.

I think it would be difficult to keep this article accurate and source it in it's current format; my searches didn't turn up a source compiling this information on the same basis. Each serve can probably be verified, but that doesn't guarantee that the ranking position on the list is correct because of possible missing entries.

If a player beats their previous best serve that's likely to feature in match reports, but if they serve below their previous best (eg Roddick serves in the low 140s) that might not get a specific mention as it would be nothing new. Even if considerable time was spent looking at past match reports, I don't think there’s a way of being sure it's complete. Cassandra 73 (talk) 11:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to add, this becomes an accuracy issue rather than just an issue of being incomplete because the list uses ranking positions. Cassandra 73 (talk) 12:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The list should be adjusted to show only each player's best serve. There is no realistic possibility of maintaining complete lists of all serves over 140/125, and very little point in attempting to do so. Luwilt (talk) 19:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Roscoe Tanner 153mph serve

I took this out of the main table and put it as a footnote because it was recorded by a journalist in the stands and is therefore unofficial. (I think on-court measurements are taken straight down the court, so if the journalist was positioned at an angle this measurement would be inconsistent with other measurements in this table.) This has since been reverted so in keeping with WP:BRD I thought I’d mention it here. Cassandra 73 (talk) 11:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This [4] is the source I based my last comment on, just adding it here as it's now been taken out of the article. Date's also been changed to 1978 per Tanner's autobiography. I think this article must be talking about the same serve and has possibly got the date wrong (there would have been no point discussing an unofficial serve from 1976 if there was an official one from 1978). Also many secondary sources credit Rusedski's 149 serve in 1998, and also Phillipoussis' 142 in 1997 [5] as a record at the time, which obviously it wouldn't have been if Tanner had an official 153. Cassandra 73 (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Wawrinka 246km/h serve

Stan Wawrinka served a 246km/h ace against the Bryan Brothers in the 2008 Olympics Doubles semi-final, can that be added, or do serves in doubles games not count?

Some qualifications to this list

It would be useful to give some account of how the data on this list was collected. For instance, does anyone know when service speeds first began to be measured on the ATP and WTA tours? It would be worth adding to the article, if so. Furthermore, do all tournaments have the technology to measure the speed of a serve? If not, that would also be worth noting. ANB (talk) 18:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)