Has Andy Murray created a ‘tipping point’ in the debate on using the under-arm serve as a legitimate tactic?

Former world number one, Andy Murray did an under-arm serve for the first time in his career at Indian Wells in 2021 in his match against Carols Alcaraz (click here for clip & post match interview). Murray has become a bit of a ‘go to’ for many people on key issues in tennis as he has not only been a very successful player but also someone who seems to have a great sense of ‘right and wrong’. He has been very forthright on the topics of gender equality and also recently on players use of bathroom breaks/injury timeouts. I have been moving towards a personal position of the under-arm serving been a ‘fair tactic’ for a year or so now.

I am 42 years old and throughout my time in tennis the message on under-arm serving has been pretty standard, in that it is an ‘unsporting’ shot to play. A great example being when Martina Hingis did one to save a championship point at 5-2 in the 1999 French Open. Hingis won the point but the crowd then booed her relentlessly for the remainder of the match (click here to watch). Interesting in the 1989 French Open final Michael Chang did a similar tactic and the crowd were much more supportive of Chang (click here to watch). It seems a crowd can make there own mind up what is ‘right and wrong’ and often it can be based on the popularity of the players involved and the match situation.

The under-arm serve is a legitimate shot within the rules of tennis but ‘tennis etiquette’ has often deemed it should not be used as a tactic. ‘Tennis etiquette’ has though deemed that is okay to use this shot if you tell your opponent you are going to do it due to an injury affecting your ability to serve over-arm. This happened to me on a few occasions in competitive tennis both as the server and the receiver. A good friend of mine played many matches against me using an under-arm serve due to a long term shoulder injury. Psychologically it is a tough challenge to take on as you feel you should be winning every point but takes a lot of skills, particularly at the net, to capitalise on the opportunity.

Nick Kyrgios has been the flag-bearer for the under-arm serve and logically it has made sense for him to develop this tactic. Kyrgios has one of the most potent over-arm serves in the game and a tactic most players use to counter this is to stand as far back in the court as they can to allow them more time to react. 20-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal is a leading user of this approach and watching him live it is amazing to see how far he stands back to return (*often professional events have much longer distances behind the baseline in comparison to club courts). I have have tried to use this return tactic myself but actually found it very difficult to execute successfully. Dr Leonidas Spiliopoulos wrote an excellent article on the benefits of using the under-arm serve. He highlighted lots of positive under-arm serve statistics, including on first serves the point was won on 83% of occasions when using an under-arm serve, compared to 71% when using an over-arm serve (click here to read article).

So where do I personally stand as a coach in teaching lots of junior players. I work for an Academy and currently our position is that the under-arm serve is not to be used, and I have to respect our team’s position. I think as a team it would be good to debate this and see if we need to change our position. I don’t think it is a key skill for young players to learn and should not form a large component of our teaching curriculum. However, I think we must encourage players to be ‘students of the game’ and be open as coaches to players developing this skill. There are two examples where I might actively want to work on under-arm serves with a player. One, would be if they said they wanted to explore it themselves. Secondly, would be if an opponent (standing far back) or conditions (slow courts, wind etc..) meant I could see it has a good tactic to use. Many debates often have a ‘tipping point’ and I think Andy Murray could be the person that changes tennis etiquette and adds an extra dimension to our wonderful game. 

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