Mumbai: There was a deafening thud. And then a skillful touch. The crash brought about a general sense of awe. The point came from the contact.

The tale of a 6'8" behemoth who challenged the world with the quickest serve ever seen in Wimbledon history, only to lose the point, is this one. This is also the tale of contemporary tennis, across gender, where just having a strong serve may not be enough to win the game.

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, a Frenchman, blasted a 153 mph shot off his racquet in the first game of his first-round match against Taylor Fritz on Monday that could very well have been a bazooka. It easily surpassed Tayor Dent's previous record of 148 mph, which was established in 2010, and shattered the record for the quickest serve ever recorded in the history of the oldest Grand Slam in tennis. It was amazing. The events that followed, however, were more like business as usual.

With a frigid forehand chip, Fritz retorted to that scorching body serve. The return caused Perricard to leap to the side in an attempt to bring the ball back into play. Fritz scored the point two attempts later. simple finish, electric start. Ditto the game Fritz won over two days by a score of 6-7(6), 6-7(8), 6-4, 7-6(6), 6-4.

The match, as well as the conclusion, is representative of the current state of the sport. Even at Wimbledon, where those quicker grass courts were formerly preyed upon by one-strike monsters.

Relying heavily on his lightning-fast left-handed serve, Goran Ivanisevic would win Wimbledon in 2001 as a wildcard. According to the Wimbledon Compendium, Pete Sampras would lose just four service games out of his total 131 throughout his seven singles final victories at the All England Club. The John Isner-Nicolas Mahut 2010 marathon, one of the most memorable matches in Wimbledon history, would include a total of 216 aces. The most serves ever recorded in a singles encounter was 113 by Isner.

Isner also holds the record for the most aces scored by a man in a single Championships, with 214 in 2018. The women's record belongs to Serena Williams (102 in 2012). Perricard led the way in aces for men last year, while Elena Rybakina did so for women. 115 and 39, respectively, are the numbers. A significant drop. Rybakina retired in the semifinal, and Perricard left in the fourth round.

The dependence and reward of a strong serve as the greatest weapon is far from as lucrative as it once was. Isner, Ivo Karlovic, Reilly Opelka, and others, who are among the quickest servers in the men's game over the previous ten years, would have loved to win a singles Grand Slam championship. Of the three, only Isner has advanced to the semi-finals.

Perricard is at the top of the ATP's serve leaderboard, which takes into account the overall quality of service over the previous 52 weeks, including first serves, second serves, and aces. He is ahead of Fritz, Alexander Zverev, and Matteo Berrettini. Neither owns a significant award. For a Slam champion to appear on that list in fifth place, it requires Jannik Sinner.

This serve slide has been caused by a number of variables. The courts have grown slower and slower over the years, even those new greens at SW19. The lack of uniformity between tournaments adds another factor at play because the balls tend to vary. Baseliners have taken over, regardless of the surface, and are now concentrating more on a more complete overall game.

The Big Three of men's tennis serve as an excellent example of that, both individually and as a group. Andy Roddick, who boasted a powerful serve as his unique selling point, lost to Roger Federer by a score of 21-3. Although Federer had the superior serve among the three, Novak Djokovic, a seven-time Wimbledon champion and 22-time Slam champion, also frequently made light work of the servebots.

Further evidence that the first strike is not always the deciding factor, even on grass? Carlos Alcaraz, the Spaniard who holds the serve as the weakest aspect of his game, won Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024.

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