Nick Kyrgios made waves in tennis world weeks ago when he started hitting underarm serves as a way to change up the pace of the match and keep his opponents from standing too far behind the baseline. However, given that Kyrgios has one of the best serves in men's tennis, the underarm serve was seen as more of a novelty act than anything worth paying serious attention to. And while players, like Alejandro Davidovich Fokina started to also occasionally serve underarmed, it seemed more for the shock factor to the opponent than a serious, long-term strategy.
However, what happens when the shock factor turns into a method of fending off retirement and keeping a player's tennis dreams alive? That is what Sara Errani is currently grappling with. As Diego Barbiani states in this tweet, in last night's match in Bogota, Errani served underarm for most of the match, especially in the second set. And not only that, but Errani only lost three games in the match. And as, Barbiani states, she only hit four double faults!
Now, you might be thinking, why is it such a big deal that she only hit four double faults? Well, in her previous match, she hit 18 double faults. To put that in perspective, 18 double faults is around 4.5 games in a match. While that is not a perfect comparison to make, given deuce games, it is still startling to see Errani serving so poorly. Sara's serve was always the weak part of her game, but she never used to serve like this. The serve is the one part of a player's game that the player has full control over, and is considered by many to be the most important shot in tennis, so to see Errani struggling to this extent is shocking.
But, it seems like switching to the underarm serve, at least in that one match, helped Errani to cut down on her serving woes and allow her to showcase her high-quality clay-court baseline game. This is in contrast to Errani often ending the point before it has really even started, not with an ace, but with a double fault. When one watches Errani, it is clear that her groundstroke prowess, while not on the level she was at when she made the final of the French Open in 2012, is still at a very high level. The problem is, however, when your serve is under pressure so often, by yourself as often as your opponent, how are you able to win consistently?
I don't see this underarm serve to be a long-term strategy for Errani. The WTA Bogota is definitely not the strongest of the WTA tournaments, and having success with the underarm serve against Bibiane Schoofs, currently No. 149 in the live rankings, doesn't mean that Errani is all of a sudden going to go toe-to-toe, for example, with Angelique Kerber, like she has in the past (head to head 2-2). Errani will most likely have to work out how to manage the regular service motion if she is going to advance in tournaments with stronger fields.
It is so interesting how this whole situation has panned out. Although Michael Chang famously used the underarm serve in his match against Ivan Lendl at the French Open, Nick Kyrgios revived it with his occasional underarm serves recently, and because it's Nick Kyrgios, this sparked seemingly endless debates about the underarm serve, with Kyrgios certainly enjoying the even brighter spotlight that serving underarm has brought him.
Yet, we also have a player, Sara Errani, who is using the underarm serve as a way to keep her dream of playing in French Open qualifying alive. It's amazing how far Errani has fallen, going from her peak, battling Maria Sharapova for the French Open, to her doping ban, to now utilizing the underarm serve as a way to keep her tennis career, and chances to even get into French Open qualifying, afloat.
Thus, proving that the underarm serve can be used for very different reasons.
