Would you consider a powerful serve a weapon, or a substitute for bad tennis?

Question

Do you see a serve like Andy Roddicks a talent like Mcnroes touch, Nadals movement, Federers forehand, or do you see it as free points used by him to avoid getting into rally's that he will probably get outclassed in? I am a Roddick fan,and think he does have a fair to great game at times but would rather see great rallys over non-stop aces.

Answer 1

Agree with tennisrox, once again. Roddick sucks, other than his serve, the rest of his game sucks tremendously. Nowadays, a huge serve ain't gonna get ur a$$ anywhere, the 3 tops players are a great example of this as they don't rely on their serves for life. Look at Karolvic and Ishner, they have extremely huge serves, but haven't done sh*t with anything else.....

Answer 2

I wouldn't consider it a substitute... but that is definitely his best asset.... by far. I do think that he uses it to get free points from his aces, but I also think that he's trying to work on it (no sources on that, so don't be critical of me, but if i were him, I definitely would be working on things other than my serve). Even though he has the fastest serve in the world, he's still ranked number six, which is very good, but there are still five guys in front of him. Just having a powerful serve doesn't make him the best player in the world. When I was watching the Roddick-Tipsaravic (sorry, probably a spelling error) match for Wimbledon, the one long rally that I saw, Tipsaravic won, if that says anything.

Answer 3

Its a weapon for sure, but if you dont possess a ground game, a serve only gets you so far. Just ask Roddick.

Answer 4

To understand how important that serve is for him, just look at his french open results.... horrible horrible horrible or rather appropriate considering his game.

Clay courts nullify his big serve and being successful there needs a good ground game, which he doesn't possess.

So, in Roddick's case it's a substitute for bad tennis.

Answer 5

his serve is a substitue for his bad groundstrokes. i used to think roddick was the absolute best man in the world at tennis. I just realized that he doesn't move his feet and pushes his backhand. His forehand only works half the time and he barely won any rallies against tipsarevic.

w/o the roddick serve he would only be ranked  in the 60's

sorry to be so critical but this is the truth

Answer 6

catmandu's answer is absurd.  Sampras had much more than a Serve.  Are we talking about the same Sampras?  You've got to be kidding me.

Secondly, although Roddick does have the most powerful serve in tennis it does NOT mean that the rest of his game sucks.  He wouldn't be ranked as high as he is with only a serve.  He has great groundstrokes too; they just aren't as good relative to those of Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer.  By no stretch of the imagination is his serve his ONLY shot.

People diss on Roddick because he has such a great serve, but doesn't manage to capitalize on it to be the best player in professional tennis.  But, tennis is MORE than just a serve.  That's why Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and others are ranked so high.  It's ALSO why Roddick is ranked inside the top 10.  If he ONLY had a serve he wouldn't be much of a professional tennis player.

Answer 7

a big serve is a blessing.. it can set you up for the next point to attack.. but a player who relies just on a big serve will ultimately never suceed as a top player... especially these days..

you need a good ground game, consistent ground strokes, good movement and all court awareness....

Answer 8

Good observation. I don't have as much respect for players that are one shot wonders like Sampras had on his serve. He didn't need to do anything else well because the serve set everything else up so easily. But you have to admit people like that are very effective players though.

I always distinguish between "effective" and "talented." Agassi was talented, but Sampras was effective. Michael Jordan is talented, but Shaq is effective. All great, but in different ways.

Look at it this way. Take away the Sampras serve and any shot you want of Agassi and have them play. Who will win? Agassi every time and twice on Sundays. Agassi had a great return, a great forehand, a great backhand and super speed. He was talented. Without the serve Sampras is but a high level college player. But with the serve he is extrememly effective. Obviously.

Shaq and Jordan. Both superstar great players. But, make them both the same size and which one of them will still have a great career, and which one would you have never even heard of? Obviously Jordan would have had a great NBA career no matter what, but Shaq without his size wouldn't even play college. Jordan=talented, Shaq=effective.

A good judge of professional tennis players is the French Open. Since power isn't as important, and talent comes to the forefront, players who do well there are truely great players.

Answer 9

Roddick is predominantly a serving machine. Give him credit for realizing that he needed to improve his forehand accuracy and develop a backhand slice during his short stint with Connors. But his game is still built around his serve and he doesn't have any other great strokes to complement it. So, if the opponent can read his serve that day, he loses the contest often.  He won a Grand slam, reached No.1 briefly and made it to three other finals (including 2 Wimbledons) with that awesome serve and has been consistently ranked in the top 10. So, I dare not say it is not a weapon for him. If you have that serve and can improve other aspects of your game, you will be very successful. But Andy's glory days (on the court that is) are probably over now. Roger, Rafa and Nole can all read his serves well and so can a contingent of rising stars like Murray, Gasquet etc. Even Tipseravic today! To answer your question, it is definitely a weapon when you develop other parts of your game (i.e Sampras and Gulbis in the future) but a substitute to bad tennis otherwise (like in the case of Isner, Karlovic).

Answer 10

A powerful serve is a great weapon to have, but you can't rely solely on that, or any one weapon for that matter, and expect to be a top player.  All of the top 3 players have more than one weapon at their disposal.  Roddick used to have a great forehand too, but it's not reliable anymore, and his court positioning is horrible, always playing way behind the baseline in rallies, which only works if you can defend as well as a player like Nadal.