There will always be a place for a sliced backhand or clever drop shot in tennis circles, from the amateur ranks to the pros, because the spectacle and the skill are what make this sport so compelling to watch.
But there is no escaping the fact that brute force is king.
Panache will forever be embraced, but combine that with power and you are on to a winner.
In more recent times, with the men’s game littered with towering performers that send rockets down from the sky, the benefits of boasting a serious weapon to open any given point have never been so obvious.
As with golf, where drives become longer by the year, a big serve is now paramount for elite tennis players.
The skillset is so similar that athletes now need something extra special to come out on top.
The very best in the business have found a way of combining graft with guile, allowing them to collect major honors by the bucket load while continuing to earn favour in all the tennis odds ahead of any given Masters tournament or Grand Slam event.
This combination of strength and strategy is what the fans want to see and what the professionals need to possess if they are to get ahead of the game.
Even though top performers like Novak Dojokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Daniil Medvedev are not the kinds to blow opponents away right off the racket.
Their games are more about tactics and maneuvering rivals into areas of the court that they do not want to be.
Some, though, are very much about getting games over and done with as quickly as possible. For them, speed – in every sense of the word – is of the essence, with their respective skill sets based around the ability to collect points with just one shot being required.
With the various approaches in mind, the time has come to check out who has fired down the biggest serves in the history of men’s tennis.
Here, we take a look at the top four fastest serves in the history of the sport.
The 4 fastest serves of all time
4 – Ivo Karlovic & Jerzy Janowicz, 251 km/h
Croatian star Karlovic, who stands at 6ft 11in tall, was one of the first to raise a serving bar at an elite level and thundered down one effort during a Davis Cup doubles match in 2011 that threatened to scorch the earth.
Unfortunately, his gallant efforts were ultimately in vain, as he was unable to inspire victory in both that contest and a tie with Germany overall, leading to his nation crashing out in round one.
The following year, Karlovic saw his personal best serve emulated by Polish ace Janowicz at the Pekao Szczecin Open.
Although he fared better than his Croatian colleague as the game in question helped him to a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 first-round victory over Yannick Mertens.
With confidence flowing through his game, Janowicz would go on to reach the quarter-finals of an event on home soil before eventually coming unstuck.
3 – John Isner, 253 km/h
Another of those that are pushing towards seven feet tall, Isner does not need to be the most mobile due to his ability to rattle down aces.
He has been as high as the world’s top 10 in the past, which goes to show that he has much more than just one big shot in his locker.
That shot is, however, something truly special to behold.
Isner is a regular towards the top of any speed chart and posted a personal best serve during the 2016 Davis Cup.
That effort was produced during a first-round tie with Australia that the United States prevailed in and sent the eighth seeds packing.
A model of consistency when it comes to finding a service box, with his technique almost faultless, Isner may now be slowing down slightly, but he has been both fast and furious down the years.
2- Albano Olivetti, 257.5 km/h
The Italian may not be recognizable to many, as he has never broken inside the world’s top 150, but he certainly has some impressive strings to his bow.
One of those briefly saw him top an all-time serving chart in 2012 after catching the eye at the Internazionali Trofeo Lame Perrel–Faip event.
In that tournament, a man who progressed through the qualifiers took the first set in his opening round clash with Dusan Lajovic.
That would be as good as things got, with the Croatian opponent hitting back to reach round two, but history was Olivetti’s for the taking.
His height has always made him a threat when serving at full throttle, but consistency has proved elusive for long periods and it is that which has held him back and prevented a greater impact on the global game from being made.
1- Sam Groth, 263 km/h
A few months after Olivetti took serving to new heights, Groth raised the bar even higher in May 2012 when the Australian became the first man past 260 km/h.
His remarkable effort came during a second-round tie at the Busan Open Challenger event.
He lost a match in which the record books were rewritten to Uladzimir Ignatik, but the headlines were his regardless.
More than 10 years have now passed with Groth retaining his spot at the serving summit, but he will forever be shooting anxious looks over his shoulder as stars of the present do their best to chase him down.
Getting a big serve in and rattling the ball past the ears of unsuspecting opponents is no guarantee of success, as is shown by those on a notable roll of honor, but it certainly helps and the expectation should be that speed guns will get turned up another notch in the years to come.
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