paulisi wrote:

---

Coup Droit wrote:

---

May be wrong but doesn't that make Angie Blake's third counter in singles, and so a ranking?

---

 Second counter - Steven says she needs another win to get a ranking.

---

 Thanks. Yep, I see where I went wrong - there was another counter back in 2019 and I was counting that too....

But real close now.....

ADD: Thanks, too, for the info Danny 

Coup Droit wrote:

---

Peter too wrote:

---

Can't help thinking that some of the girls might benefit from a service coach. In the Blake Raina match for example there have been 8 games that went against service and only 2 went with service.

---

 This is a constant problem and poses many interesting points

Firstly, women's service problems are true right up to the very top end of the game - the last stats I saw when working was that top men hold serve about 77% of the time, whereas top women hold serve about 65%

If you go further down the rankings, the difference is more marked - women generally in ITF 25ks are about 50%, I believe.

Women who are shorter often (but not always) have trouble with holding serve. Height and arm length help a lot with pace and trajectory. Strength comes into it too. 

Also, women have a far better return game than serve - the return is very like their normal, driven ground shots, and hence is something that is more mastered (unlike serves which have so many quirks, and unusual actions).

It doesn't necessarily mean that the serves are weak or that service coaching will help - indeed, one argument in coaching is to work even more on the return, because that's easier to improve even further. Similarly, women work hard on the third shot of the rally i.e. they serve, the return comes, and they work on that next shot - being ready to move, using their legs to absorb the pace etc etc - they know the serve is not strong, they know they'll get a strong return, so work on the return of the return 

Not saying they shouldn't work on their serve too, of course 

---

 Interesting points. Where I do think it would be useful is for those players whose serve lets them down in key moments. It's not so much having a world beating serve, but more having a reliable one that you can turn to when under pressure. Tara for instance was absolute plagued by double faults. I'd have thought that it's possible to build something that doesn't let her down so easily. Once they start serving double faults then it affects the rest of their game, which is why that particular aspect is disproportionately important. 

Coup Droit wrote:

---

Yes, fair point.

There are relatively few women who you would advise, as a coach, to do second first serves - Naomi Broady, actually, may be one of the only ones

So a reliable second serve is important and, as you say, can cause a real downwards spiral when it all goes to pot. But it does really depend on the opponent too - there's no point at all in patting a reliable ball into the middle of the box if your opponent is then creaming the serve - it makes you feel even more under pressure and you lose the point anyway. On the other hand, there's no point trying to do well-placed top-spin second serves, that you keep missing by a bit, if the opponent is not coming in at all and is standing back - just put it in the box. It's the lucidity that's often lacking (as well as technical issues).

As an aside, I note that a lot of our junior girls have very decent serve techniques - generally, it's one of the better parts of their games.

---

 Some years back, there was one player, I think it may have been Katie O'Brien, who was finding her 2nd serves kept getting hit past her and gave up playing 2nd serves. She reckoned that she lost fewer points playing two 1st serves and accepting the Dfs than trying to play safe 2nd serves.