Fastest recorded tennis serves
This article lists the fastest record serve speeds for men's and women's professional tennis.
Max reported speeds that are outliers are dubious due to the occasional errors with ATP radar equipment. Some notable outliers are the recorded speeds of John Isner at 4,718 km/h (2,931.6 mph), João Sousa at 2,077 km/h (1,290.6 mph), Denis Shapovalov at 424 km/h (263.5 mph), Laslo Djere at 305 km/h (189.5 mph), Alejandro Davidovich Fokina at 252 km/h (156.6 mph), Ryan Harrison at 244.6 km/h (152.0 mph), Gaël Monfils at 242.0 km/h (150 mph), and Rafael Nadal at 230.0 km/h (142.9 mph).
The fastest recorded serve by Sam Groth was 163 mph (263 km/h) at a Challenger event. His second fastest record speed, and his fastest at an ATP event, was 147 mph at Wimbledon. Similarly, John Isner once hit a serve recorded at 253.0 km/h (157 mph) in the first round of the 2016 Davis Cup. One of the next fastest recorded speeds for Isner is 144 mph and the fastest serve in most of his matches is between 137 and 142 mph. The fastest recorded speed that is not an outlier is 149 mph by Ben Shelton. At 20 years old, the American Ben Shelton served at 149 mph twice in the same game during the 1/8 finals of the 2023 US Open. Shelton has reached speeds of 147 mph to 149 mph on multiple occasions.
This list is not historically complete. For instance, not listed here, Roscoe Tanner's serve was clocked at 153 mph at Palm Springs in 1978 during the final against Raúl Ramírez. There are also reports that Bill Tilden had a serve that was clocked at 163.3 mph but there is nothing to verify that. Also, Ellsworth Vines in the Wimbledon finals of 1932 clocked 121 mph (without Radar). Udayachand Shetty's winning serve was clocked by radar at 120 mph using a wooden racquet, at the Gilbey Gins fast serve contest held in Chicago on 24 July 1976. This qualified him to take part in the finals at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills Queens on 20 August 1976. Colin Dibley of Australia won the event with a serve of 130 mph.
Reilly Opelka with a 233 km/h (144.8 mph) second serve in the quarterfinals of the 2021 Italian Open in Rome, holds the record for the fastest second serve ever recorded.
- Criteria to be listed in this article
- Men's serves must be recorded at or over 230 km/h (142.9 mph) minimum standard speed.
- Women's serves must be recorded at or over 200 km/h (124.3 mph) minimum standard speed.
- Only one serve per player is recorded here. For example, Andy Roddick has several 140 mph (225.3 km/h) or faster serves on his record but only his personal best of 249 km/h (155 mph) is included.
- In cases where more than one serve has been recorded at the same speed, the oldest recorded serve is listed first.