This week's Throwback Thursday from the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum takes a look at the vital part of a player's skill set, the serve...
The serve is a crucial part of the game of tennis. For players, it is a vital and powerful part of their skill set, and can determine how a point is played out. Customarily, players choose to serve overarm – but this was not always the case.
The first player to serve overarm at The Championships was Arthur Thomas Myers in 1878. This style of serve was starting to become quite popular, and soon became the favoured serving style over underarm. One of the first female players to serve overarm was Ellen Mary Stawell-Brown – competing at Wimbledon between 1901 and 1905.
In contrast, the last player to regularly serve underarm was Stawell-Brown’s daughter, Susan Billington. Mrs Billington competed at Wimbledon in the ladies’ and mixed doubles between 1946 and 1956, reaching the third round in the ladies’ doubles in 1951, 1955 and 1956. Interestingly, these two female players are the great grandmother and grandmother of Tim Henman.
Today, players favour the overarm serve. By striking the ball above their heads, the players are able to produce more speed and create a greater accuracy when it comes to getting a point. However, there have been recent occasions when the underarm serve has cropped up again. For example, at the 2013 US Open, Jerzy Janowicz decided to play an underarm serve after an injury hampered his usual powerful overarm.
So important is a player’s serve nowadays, it gets analysed during each match at Wimbledon by the IBM Slamtracker. In addition to looking at the statistics from the match as a whole, the Slamtracker also tracks the speed of the player’s serve – how well the serve served the player! The record for the fastest male serve at Wimbledon is held by Taylor Dent, with a speed of 148mph in 2010. The record for the fastest ladies serve is held by Venus Williams, with a speed of 129mph in 2008.
Visiting The Championships this year? Did you know that you can test your speed of serve, and compare it to the professionals, at the ‘Play Tennis’ Marquee?
