Kyrgios Never Keeps His Mouth Shut

Nick Kyrgios only played one match this entire year. However, he has tried to give us updates along the way of how his knee is doing. In November, he joined the Tennis Channel to call some of the ATP Finals matches. We also know that he loves to express his opinions on Twitter.

Recently, there has been a Twitter war between Boris Becker and Nick Kyrgios, and I want to report on it because it deals with a very important topic, which is the tennis serve. I spent a tremendous amount of time analyzing the serve, and it is my favorite stroke in tennis to analyze. Now some of the things that Kyrgios is claiming I strongly disagree with, so let me first tell you what Kyrgios said.

Kyrgios’ Statement

“The game was so slow back then. I watched Boris Becker, and I'm not saying that they weren't good in their time, but to say that they would be just as good now, it's absurd. A big serve back then was like 197 to km an hour. People like me serve 220 consistently to corners. It's a whole different ball game.”

He continued by saying, “I'm not saying they wouldn't have found their way, but to serve and volley to do it all the time now, you need to be serving 220 because if you serve anything less than 220, bro, Djokovic eats you alive. He eats you alive, bro. Lleyton Hewitt destroyed Pete Sampras one year at the US Open. That was the first prototype of someone who could return serve. He made Sampras look like sh*t. And what would Djokovic do to someone like Sampras? It would be a cleanup. If Hewitt was doing it, Djokovic would destroy him. He would eat him alive.”

Opinion

Let me comment on what Kyrgios said here, and there's a lot of falsehoods. I'm really shocked that these falsehoods are coming from a great player such as Kyrgios. First of all, to say that servers back in the day of Becker and Sampras weren't as fast as today's serve is ludicrous. The serve has not increased in speed or quality. Boris Becker's fastest serve was 141 mph, and Pete Sampras could easily serve over 130 mph. Now, mind you that the equipment that these guys were using back in the day wasn't as high quality as the equipment that players use nowadays. But despite that fact, players were serving at the same speed that the players serve today.

When it comes to serve quality, it's not all about speed. This is exactly the same thing that Boris Becker said. In the serve and volley era, serves were structured differently; they had to be more precise, and there was a lot more variety on the serve. One important factor is also the second serve, and in my opinion, Pete Sampras had the greatest second serve of all time.

So when we're talking about serves, it's not all about speed; you have to look at the entire picture, including the whole game. Think about it this way. The whole reason why the ATP Tour changed the balls and the surfaces was the quality of the serves. Remember the Ivanisevic-Sampras Wimbledon finals with no rallies whatsoever? That is the primary reason why tennis was changed and slowed down so that we can get more rallies.

No Need To Go Big

When Kyrgios says that you need to serve 220 to serve and volley, that is absolutely not true. If you remember the US Open final between Djokovic and Medvedev, Djokovic was serving slice serves at 115 miles an hour, and he was doing a phenomenal job serving and volleying. If you watch the Madrid final between Struff and Alcaraz, Struff was serving kick serves, serving and volleying, and he had great success doing so. So no, you don't need to serve 220 in order to serve and volley.

Could you serve and volley on every first and second serve in today's powerful game? Probably not, but this more has to do with the surfaces than anything else. Of course, you would have a horrible time serving and volleying just like players had a terrible time doing so on Clay back in the day.

Slow Balls & Courts

If you serve and volley on every first and second serve playing with slow balls on a slow hardcourt, you're going to have a hard time against players like Nadal, Djokovic, Tsitsipas, and so on. To say the game was so slow back then is completely misleading. I want everybody to look up the ATP World Finals from back in the day when it was played in Germany between Sampras and Becker. Then I want you to take a look at a rally from this year's Paris Rolex Masters between Medvedev and Dimitrov where they went back and forth at least 50 times. Tell me which game was faster, Becker-Sampras or Medvedev-Dimitrov.

Watch those matches between Becker and Sampras. You're going to see 130 mph serves; you're going to see blistering return winners. The game was unbelievably fast back in the day. I'm by no means saying that the game is slow today, but it is definitely easier to play from the baseline because of the slow surfaces and the slow balls.

Having said that, there are players who play with phenomenal speed, such as Tsitsipas and Alcaraz. And yes, of course, someone like Tsitsipas or Alcaraz would have great chances to beat a player like Sampras or Becker.

Only A Chance?

I will make the caveat and say that if we played on a fast surface, on fast grass, fast hardcourt, and you take someone like Sampras or Becker and put him even against Djokovic, I think those guys would have a chance. I do believe that Djokovic would probably figure out a way to beat them because he's the GOAT, but those guys definitely would be very difficult to break because they were masters at holding serve. Not only that, they also had phenomenal return games where they would play incredibly aggressively, getting looks at least once per set to get that important break of serve.

Becker’s Response

To go on with the story, Boris Becker actually replied to Nick Kyrgios, and he said, "Nick makes a lot of noise about tennis lately. Why does he speak about a sport he apparently hates? Fact check: Nick has never won a major championship as a player or coach. Yes, doubles one, so where is any credibility coming from trying to compare generations? Laver versus Federer, Borg versus Nadal, Sampras versus Djokovic. I'm not even going to mention McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Agassi, Courier, Edberg, Vanderker, Krajicek, Rafter, Hewitt, and many more.”

Now, Nick Kyrgios is very quick and witty on Twitter. He makes good responses that are sometimes funny, and he responded to this with, "Also, I mean, I've beaten Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, so I feel like I have a little credibility. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Novak would wipe the floor against you in your prime. Like, it's not an attack, it's just facts."

In a separate tweet, Becker wrote, "I wish Nick a speedy full recovery. I can't wait to see him back on a tennis court. He's an exciting player when he's fit. He's got a Grand Slam in his bag. But you have to do the talking on the court. Good luck, Nick Kyrgios."

Kyrgios responded again by calling Boris Becker a "potato head" and got into several altercations with people that were disagreeing with him in the comments. What a happy ending.

Final Thoughts

I do want to stress one important thing about the serve. There are great servers on the tour right now. Someone like Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Kyrgios, they have phenomenal serves. But in my opinion, the greatest servers of all time played tennis in the '90s. And why am I saying that?

I am judging it on statistics, and I'm also judging it on technique. When you look at a serve like Sampras' or Becker's and you compare it to a serve like Kyrgios, who has one of the greatest servers in the world when I conduct my technical analysis, Becker's serve and Sampras' serves are superior to Kyrgios' serve. They have a more aggressive and more powerful loading position, and there are other technical elements that Sampras and Becker do better than Kyrgios does.

This is an important lesson because despite the fact that Becker and Sampras played with equipment that was outdated, they were able to serve just as fast as the players today. They were also able to serve more consistently, more accurately, and they had better second serves. This was all due to the fact that they were phenomenal athletes that put a tremendous amount of repetitions in, and most importantly, they served with absolutely perfect technique.