What Happened To The Return of Serve in Men’s Tennis?

Recently I took a look at the current Top 10 players in the ATP rankings. I was asked to research Alex De Minaur and provide a technical summary of his game.  

Whilst researching De Minaur, I looked at two other players in the Top 10 and got a bit of an eye opener.  The return of serve stats seemed not to be at the level I would expect.  For a number of years I have heard  the return of serve is so much better today than previous decades.  Players have to go to net with extreme caution. The racquets and strings are at its optimum; players should stay on the baseline and run side to side instead…

 Interestingly, earlier this year I took a look at Pete Sampras’ return stats, as I was referencing him re my article about Carlos Alcaraz and his serve issues. As an attacking player, I looked at Sampras' overall return games won for his career. Statistics were compiled from 1991 onwards although he turned pro in 1988.  I decided to take this a lot further. We are at the end of 2024. What was the overall percentage of return games won by the Top 10 in the 1990s compared to today? I decided to look at the Top 10 in detail in December 1994, December 2004 and December 2024.

Now before I reveal the figures, why return games won? Return games won are the best indicator of a player’s ability to return serve to any standard.  Return points won, break points created, break points converted are much of a muchness. Mainly because most players tend to convert on average 40% of their break points. Some players break around 35%, others 45 to 50%.  Some players create a lot less break point opportunities than others, so the percentage of conversion doesn’t tell us that much. However, actual return games won are a great indicator to tell how competitive players are throughout the course of a season.

So, with that in mind, and looking up the stats of each player on the ATP Tour, here are the return games won for these years over a 30 year span: 

ATP Top 10; Return Games Won – December 1994
1	Pete Sampras	29%
2	Andre Agassi	34%
3	Boris Becker	23%
4	Sergi Bruguera	35%
5	Goran Ivanisevic	22%
6	Micheal Chang	33%
7	Stefan Edberg	31%
8	Alberto Berasategui	37%
9	Michael Stich	24%
10	Todd Martin	25%

ATP Top 10; Return Games Won – December 2004
1	Roger Federer	30%
2	Andy Roddick	22%
3	Lleyton Hewitt	30%
4	Marat Safin	21%
5	Carlos Moya	24%
6	Tim Henman	26%
7	Guillermo Coria	33%
8	Andre Agassi	26%
9	David Nalbandian	32%
10	Gaston Gaudio	32%

ATP Top 10; Return Games Won – December 2024
1	Jannik Sinner	28%
2	Alexander Zverev	22%
3	Carlos Alcaraz	31%
4	Taylor Fritz	20%
5	Daniil Medvedev	27%
6	Casper Ruud	24%
7	Novak Djokovic	29%
8	Andrey Rublev	20%
9	Alex De Minaur	32%
10	Grigor Dimitrov	22%

These return games won figures show a distinct trend. The return of serve among top ten players has got decidedly worse. This has a number of implications for men’s tennis which probably need to be addressed. 

Why and how has the return of serve got worse? Let’s look at titles won by the same group of players on the list:

ATP Top 10; Titles Won – December 1994
1	Pete Sampras	10
2	Andre Agassi	5
3	Boris Becker	4
4	Sergi Bruguera	3
5	Goran Ivanisevic	2
6	Micheal Chang	6
7	Stefan Edberg	3
8	Alberto Berasategui	7
9	Michael Stich	3
10	Todd Martin	2

ATP Top 10; Titles Won – December 2004
1	Roger Federer	11
2	Andy Roddick	4
3	Lleyton Hewitt	4
4	Marat Safin	3
5	Carlos Moya	3
6	Tim Henman	0
7	Guillermo Coria	2
8	Andre Agassi	1
9	David Nalbandian	0
10	Gaston Gaudio	1

ATP Top 10; Titles Won – December 2024
1	Jannik Sinner	8
2	Alexander Zverev	2
3	Carlos Alcaraz	4
4	Taylor Fritz	2
5	Daniil Medvedev	0
6	Casper Ruud	2
7	Novak Djokovic	1
8	Andrey Rublev	2
9	Alex De Minaur	2
10	Grigor Dimitrov	1

These figures are quite clear. There is no ambiguity to be discussed.  The current crop of Top 10 players has won the least amount of titles in a season collectively.

The question is, what is the reason for such a drop off in quality.  There are a lot of co-relations going on more or less at the same time.

Take the Top 10 in December 1994. Despite it being the era before the internet really got going a few years later, at least six of the players are worldwide superstars and household names.  If we look at the Top 10 in 2024, only three are household names (or four if you include Medvedev who won the US Open in 2021).

The other co-relation has to be the way tennis is played today. This is something I have been observing for a number of years with the Next Gen players. There are two key factors.  Strategies for saving break points and strategies for breaking serve. To my eyes, both key factors have not been at the highest level for some time.

Strategies for saving break points:  In tennis you are going to face break points, no matter how good you are as a server. If you get the first serve in, or hit an ace and win the point, then that’s too good. If you miss your first serve, then it is a problem.  Previous generations mainly dealt with saving break points off their 2^nd serve by becoming more aggressive.  That would invariably involve a kick serve to the backhand, attempting to illicit a shorter reply, get on top of the rally with aggressive groundstrokes, and get to net as soon as possible to avoid the long rally,  This was a tried and tested method for the best baseliners such as Andre Agassi. Bolder players would go for the serve volley tactic.  Either way, it was about getting the point on your terms as soon as possible. 

For the Next Gen players, there is a tendency not to save break points by trying to get to net, it is more about playing the 2^nd serve and hoping for the best. I see no discernible strategies for saving break points; to take the pressure off.  Taylor Fritz is a good example. It is clear he never developed a transition game as a junior player and does not recognise a short ball. Hence, if Taylor Fritz does not get in a big serve, he is in trouble.

Strategies for breaking serve:  This goes hand in hand.  The principles are more or less the same. To break serve, the top players need to be aggressive. Attack the 2^nd serve, attack short midcourt balls and put the pressure on at the net, turn defence into attack.  Pete Sampras was one of the greatest players at implementing these strategies to break serve and get matches on his terms. 

We look again at Taylor Fritz as a Next Gen player. Often plays safe instead of being aggressive. Not willing to go down the line with his shots to open up the court, preferring instead to implement crosscourt patterns, hoping for an error from his opponent. That is not a champion mentality.  Under coach Darren Cahill, Jannik Sinner transformed his game over an eighteen month period.

Previously, Sinner had no transition game and his serve was just above average. Now he has one of the best serves on the tour and has worked incredibly hard on his transition game and volley. The improvements and hence results are there to see.  Sinner has become a champion. It is a lesson for other Next Gen players that getting the basics right can help transform them to the next level.

I believe the surfaces today are also a factor. The ATP players in 1994 and 2004 competed for titles on grass, red clay, green clay, indoor carpet, indoor plexicushion hardcourts, cement hardcourts (American hardcourts), rebound ace hardcourts (Australian rubberised hardcourts).  Today, tennis is played on grass, red clay, indoor acrylic hardcourts, and outdoor acrylic hardcourts.  Great for the modern player but perhaps there is no longer the need to adapt.  With on average slower surfaces, often players are waiting to see what happens as opposed to taking the initiative.

To summarise, in December 2024, five of the players in the Top 10 won fewer than 25% of their return games. In fact, two of the Top four only won 20% of their return games in Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz.  Zverev suffers from passive play in big matches.  I saw Fritz in Eastbourne win his 2^nd grass title there and he didn’t need to do much against a journeyman opponent.  The low rate of return games won is a clear indicator that the modern player is not taking the initiative often enough. 

This can only be addressed by coaches bringing through young players with a more aggressive and all round game, focusing on defence, attack and taking the initiative.  Juan Carlos Ferrero brought through Alcaraz with this mentality and skill set from an early age. We need to see more young players coming through with this mind-set and skill set. Then the level of tennis in the Top 10 will improve again.