Body Height Will Impact Your Serve

Do you have to be tall to serve well? You absolutely do not, and I'm going to tell you one name that's going to prove my point: Serena Williams, the greatest female server in the history of tennis. Her serve was not only fast; it was very precise. She hit a tremendous amount of aces and was always very difficult to break. So, how tall was Serena Williams? Well, some people say that she was 5'10”, but if you look it up on the internet, it usually says five nine.

A lot of you guys will always take the men as an example, thinking you have to be tall to serve well. You think of players such as John Isner, Riley Opelka, Ivo Karlovic. But people often forget that there were some great servers who weren't that tall. For example, Sebastian Grosjean had one of the best serves in the world during the time that he played. If you don’t have to be tall to serve well, then how does height impact your serve? Time to find out.

Sharper Trajectory

The main advantage when being tall is the angle at which you are making contact with the ball. Obviously, when you're taller, you're going to make contact higher, and you're going to naturally get a trajectory that's more downward on the serve.

I'll never forget when Serena Williams was asked during the U.S Open when she played Karolina Pliskova, who has one of the greatest female serves of all time. Serena said that Karolina's serve goes a little bit shorter in the box. That is a huge advantage. When you have the ability to serve shorter in the box, you're going to get more first serves in. If you serve wide towards the lines, the ball is gonna exit the court at a much deeper trajectory, and you're going to get more aces because of that.

Serve Bots

Also, there might be some evidence that when you're taller, you have a little bit more leverage and you can get more power. However, that can easily be disproved with the fact that Andy Roddick had one of the greatest serves of all time, one of the fastest serves of all time, and he was only 6-2.

Now, one thing that's not fair to players like Opelka, Karlovic, and Isner is that people say that they are serve bots. I can tell you that being tall is not a guarantee that you're going to serve well because you still need sound serve mechanics. Back in the day, del Potro’s serve was like a clay court serve; he would kick his first serve in and rally from the baseline. Throughout his career, his serve improved tremendously, but it was never really at the level of an Isner or a Karlovic, despite the fact that Juan Martin del Potro was very tall.

Contact Points

Some of you guys might be wondering how Serena is able to serve so well when she's only five nine. Well, that's what we're gonna put to the test today. Say someone is 6'5, but he’s not making contact where his head is. This person will be making contact way higher than that. If he extends his arm fully and makes contact slightly above the middle of the string bed, from the top of the head to the contact point measures 3.1 feet.

Also, this person is never going to be stationary on the serve; he’s going to be airborne when he makes contact with the ball. Let's just conservatively say that you get five inches off the ground. If we add all these numbers together - being 6'5, the distance from the top of the head to the contact point, plus the five inches - this comes out to 9.9 feet, which is roughly three meters.

If we measure the height kneeling down, it's going to be 4.9 feet, and if we add the height from the top of the head to where you make contact, that's going to be 3.1 feet, which comes to eight feet. So even when you’re kneeling down, you’re still going to make contact with the ball at eight feet. This is a very important thing to understand when we're talking about height on the serve.

Net Height

It is important that we put the height of the net into context. The height of the net is 91 centimeters. From such a short height, the farther you are from the net, the taller it is going to seem. Now, keep in mind that right now, kneeling down, you’re 4.9 feet high or 144 centimeters, which is way higher than the height of the net, which is at 91 centimeters. Naturally, on the serve, with the full extension of the arm, the contact is eight feet, and it is for that reason that anyone is going to be able to comfortably get the balls inside the service line even though someone is kneeling down.

You have to understand that the serve has a downward trajectory, even on the kick serve. So make sure you keep that in mind. No one has to hit up on the ball to make it go into the box; I can hit it straight and still maneuver that ball closer and closer to the service line.

Illusions

There's no doubt about it that if you're taller, you get some advantages. However, this thing that's going around where people say you have to be tall to serve well is not true. You don't have to be tall to serve well; we are dealing with some optical illusions on the serve. Unfortunately, we're dealing with a lot of misconceptions, such as the thing that's going around that the ball goes up before it goes down. That's another optical illusion. The trajectory of the serve is always downwards, independent of what type of serve we're hitting.

Why would that be the case? Well, we don't have enough space on the other side of the court to get the ball inside the service line at a high speed. If we have to hit up first and then depend on the ball to come down later, it won't come down; there's simply not enough space for that to happen. So even for someone who's 4.9 feet tall, it's still possible to get a fast serve inside of the service line.

Final Thoughts

As the contact point gets lower, remember, the contact point on the serve was 10 feet in the air, three meters high. When you kneel down, this contact point was a lot lower; it was at eight feet or roughly two and a half meters. Obviously, there's going to be less of a downward trajectory, and it's going to be more difficult to keep the ball inside of the service line.

And it's for that reason that when Serena Williams was asked who has the better serve, Pliskova or her, she said that both serves are pretty even. The only difference is that Pliskova's serve goes a little bit shorter in the box. Understand that this does not mean that Serena Williams has a disadvantage on the serve. If you learn the proper serve fundamentals, if you get enough reps in, you can be a great server independent of your height.