What is Fastest Serve? Fastest Serve Explained in 2 minutes
Mike Goodpaster Last Verified
26/06/2026
The fastest serve is a tennis term used to describe the player of a game who plays the most powerful and fastest serve of a match.
On the ATP Tour and WTA Tours (the two premier professional tennis series for men and women) a type of radar gun is used to measure the speed of serves by the players.
Interestingly, the moment the speed of serve is recorded is at when the ball leaves the racket and not as it passes the net as many people believe.
This is because immediately after leaving the racket, the ball begins to lose speed and can reach the opposing player 20-30% slower than when it first left the racket, dependent on serve.
How is Fastest Serve used in Sports Betting?
Although there is not always a market for fastest serve as such, considering players with more powerful serves than others may be helpful in tennis betting, as a powerful, well-aimed serve is a potent weapon.
For example, Great Britain’s Greg Rusedski was considered a big-hitter but lost in straight sets to fellow strong server Goran Ivanisevic at Wimbledon in 2001. Rusedski was unable to contend with the Croatian’s serves and lost in straight sets.
However, it is important to note that tennis players get two serves and if they fault on their serve, then their second is often notably slower. That means if a player has a poor first serve conversion rate, then speed is not always such an advantage.
Did you know…
The fastest serve ever recorded in professional Tennis was achieved by Australia’s Sam Groth at the 2012 Busan Open Challenger Tennis when he recorded a super quick speed of 163.4 mph.
The fastest female serve recorded was achieved by Spain’s Georgina Garcia Pérez at the 2018 Hungarian Open and was clocked at 136.7 mph.
