First Strike Tennis

A serve and a forehand—a winning first strike point? In the last article, we looked at the number of hits that determine points and found that in pro tennis, despite a limited number of rallies that can last over 20 balls, most points are decided by 4 hits—or less. It's 60 % or higher. What wins? First strike tennis. A serve, or a serve plus one shot. A return, or a return plus one shot. If you are still struggling to get your mind around that, let's look at some specific pro matches with players including Stan Wawrinka, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokoivic and Bernard Tomic. Let's see how success in points of 4 hits or less determined what happened to these players at the Australian Open in 2015. 4 Shot Battle In Australia in 2015, Stan Wawrinka had a really nice run to the semi-finals. He won five matches before losing to Novak Djokovic. The table below outlines Stan's performance in those first 5 matches. Stan was a winner when he was a 4 hit winner. 66% percent of his total points were 4 hits or less. So by far the largest majority of the points Stan played were first...