Alexander Zverev’s (Potentially) Quick Fix
Alexander Zverev is one of the stars of men’s professional tennis. Having been ranked #1 in the world as a junior, #3 in the world as a professional at age 20, he has both the credentials and the look of a future Grand Slam champion. Currently ranked #7 in the world, Zverev is still just 23 years old, and far from being a finished product as a player. Looking at his 2019 statistics, there is one particular area of his game, that, if improved, could end up paying big dividends: his second serve effectiveness.
Below is the current ATP top 10, along with their second serve winning percentages for the year 2019:
Alexander Zverev has the lowest mark, at 44%, with the majority of the rest of the top 10 winning more than 50% of points on their second serves.
Zverev is listed at 6'6", and his first serve winning percentage is right in line with the rest of the top 10 at 75%. Why is his second serve a liability as compared to the rest of the world’s best?
To answer that, let’s first look at Roger Federer’s second serve data for 2019. Federer won 59% of his second serve points in 2019, second in the top 10 only to Rafael Nadal. Here are Federer’s serve charts from the Deuce and the Ad side of the court, respectively:
One of the reasons for Federer’s second serve effectiveness is that he keeps his opponents guessing. He doesn’t serve any part of the court more than 50% of the time. His “favorite” target is the T section in the Deuce side, where he directs 48% of his second serves.
Let’s look at Zverev’s charts next, starting with the Ad side:
His winning percentages are lower than Federer’s, but the frequency with which he aims at different parts of the box is comparable. His favorite pattern is in the Mid section, 46.9% of the time; Federer’s is wide at 46.2%. Zverev’s least favorite is the T section, where he serves 22.7% of his second serves; Federer’s least favorite is the Mid section where he hits 23.0% of his second serves.
It’s the Deuce side of the court where we notice a difference:
There are two things that stand out here:
- First, Zverev’s second serve is too predictable in the Deuce side of the court. He directs 64% of his second serves into the T section of the box. When ATP players can guess what serve is coming, and zero in on that part of the box, the server is in trouble.
- More importantly, Zverev overserves his least effective part of the box. His winning percentage in the T section is the lowest out of all the three sections, at 47.5%. In other words, Zverev overserves the part of the box, where he is more likely than not to lose a point.
If I can look up this information, easily accessible on ATP’s official website, all of Zverev’s opponents already know this. And if you give elite tennis players any edge, they will know how to exploit it. A detail, such as predictable second serve placement in one part of the court, can be the difference between winning and losing a match. Trying to introduce more variety on his second serve in the Deuce side — becoming more “Federer-esque” in a way — could be a starting point to making Zverev’s second serve less predictable, and bringing his second serve winning percentage in line with the rest of the ATP top 10.
