Mysteries of the Heavy Ball:Speed and Spin in the Serves of Pete Sampras and Greg Rusedski

In the past articles in this section, I’ve reported on the groundbreaking studies on ball speed and spin in the pro game conducted by Advanced Tennis (Click Here.). Now let’s take it a step further and see how the two interact in the serves of two of the biggest servers in the history of the modern game: Pete Sampras and Greg Rusedski. Let’s compare their combinations of speed and spin, both at the upper reaches of the modern game. But then let’s take it a step further and look at the role the type of spin plays. This turns out to be critical in developing an understanding of the so-called “heavy ball.”

For both Sampras and Rusedski, Advanced Tennis was fortunate to be able to measure over a dozen first serves, including serves directed to all 4 corners of the service boxes. This gave us a picture of the range of possibilities and speed spin combinations for both players.

The results of the study show that Pete and Greg produced balls that were virtually identical in terms of the speed and the total amount of initial spin. Despite these similarities, however, there was a significant difference in the quality of…