Speed and Spin in the Current Women’s Game

What can we really know about womens’ speed and spin? Compared with last month’s piece on men’s groundstrokes, (Click Here) average speeds for the top pro women don’t seem to have changed much over the years. But spin rates may have–although it is difficult to say for certain due to the lack of data compared with what we found for the men. While the ATP provides average speeds and spins for groundstrokes, the WTA does not. So to get women’s data I had to resort to getting speed and spin in a limited way from the majors, which have widely varying reporting systems. The speed data shown here comes from the French Open in 2023. Speed Averages at Roland Garros 2023 Forehand Backhand 1st Serve 2nd Serve Iga Swiatek 73 66 101 85 Aryna Sabalenka 75 71 107 87 Elena Rybakina 73 68 109 88 Jessica Pegula 70 66 102 86 Caroline Garica 68 65 111 94 Ons Jabeur 65 62 99 80 Coco Gauff 66 66 102 87 Forehands by the top ranked womens’ players averaged 69.7MPH, about 7 MPH lower than the men’s forehands. But one reason for the difference may be the greater variety of playing styles…