Interactive Forum July 2024: Donna Vekic Serve

[johnyandell]

Donna Vekic Serve

Last month we took a deep dive in Coco Gauff’s serve. This month let’s drop down and take a look at the serve of a veteran women’s player, Croatian Donna Vekic. She’s 5’ 11” or so and has been as high as 19 in the world, now about 50.

I know what I see—but what about you? What is technique really like in the woman’s game below super elite players?

[hybridfh]

Incomplete ISR from both the Deuce and Ad sides for her 1st serves. Surprised the ISR isn't at least stronger on the Ad side where it is easier to do.

[jimlosaltos]

Here is a pair of photos of Vekic serving from 2019 at San Jose, in case they are of interest. (c)me

filedata/fetch?id=104861&d=1720379619&type=thumb

filedata/fetch?id=104862&d=1720379620&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Some stats on Vekic's serve of possible interest.

Donna ranks 37th on WTA in "Service Games Won" and "Serve Points Won"

She is second among women singles players at this year's Wimbledon in total aces. If we divide by the number of matches played, Donna gets 5.8 aces/ match which is a smudge ahead of the average for the top 20 women of 5.5

Stats from Wimbledon site, Aces/Match calculated in Excel.

filedata/fetch?id=104946&d=1720985020&type=thumb

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[jimlosaltos]

Good enough to beat Coco at the Olympics today:

6:37 min YT highlights

[stroke]

I have never seen any "shot quality" numbers on any WTA players regarding the serve, forehand, backhand, and return of serve, but I have a feeling it would not be pretty.