‘We changed the whole movement’: Swiatek and Gauff on new serve techniques
PARIS — A few weeks ago in Rome, Iga Swiatek was asked about her new-and-improved serve, the distinctive, now slightly abbreviated offering that has helped her navigate to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros.
“That’s weird,” said Swiatek, looking a little perplexed. “Honestly, I keep laughing about my serve, but I know it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of the stat.”
Heading into Paris, no one who has played more than 10 matches this year wins a higher percentage of service games (83.6), service points (64.5) or break points saved (71.4). Since shortening her motion to the ball since the start of 2024, Swiatek has become more consistent. And when you’re already the World No.1, that means trouble for the rest of the field.
The service at an outside café in this city of light, especially if you aren’t a local, can be dodgy at times. The same is true on these baked red courts in Paris.
Le service is a player’s soul laid bare, a very public measure of a very private resource — confidence. It’s the first and most important strike of the point. The idea is to create a series of linked events that is repeatable — especially when circumstances become difficult. Easier said than done.
The service motion is a personal thing, something most players have been doing almost unconsciously for many years. But in professional tennis, like all sports, if you’re not improving, you’re probably falling behind.
It’s not a coincidence that the WTA Tour’s three top-ranked players have all tinkered with their service approach over the past two years.
No.3-ranked Coco Gauff, for example, has lowered her toss and simplified her motion.
“If I want to be the player that I want to become, I have to be uncomfortable and make changes to my game,” she said before the tournament. “I feel like it’s getting better. But it’s obviously a shot that I feel is tough to change just because when you’re tight or whatever, you kind of revert back to what you know works.”
Smoother, shorter, better
Mary Carillo, working as a NBC Sports analyst here, has the formula for success.
“One, hold serve. Two, have one strength. Three, hide your weakness. That’s it,” Carillo said. “Hold serve and have a strength, hold serve and hide a weakness. But of the three, holding serve is the key.”
It’s basically true of any Grand Slam. Carillo, inspired, stood up (despite wearing a walking boot) and demonstrated the ideal, fluid serve.
“You watch any great server, the rhythm is always down, up, hit. Down, up and hit — that is the rhythm. If Coco’s toss is wandering — if you have to have good footwork to serve — that’s not good.”
Carillo went on to cite the serves of Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka (more about her later) as particularly fluid and beautiful.
“Iga’s serve, to me, looks very measured,” she said.
Swiatek’s service is a little unorthodox. To begin, she rests her white Tecnifibre Tempo 298 racquet against the ball, leans backward and then very slowly pulls it sideways with her right hand, almost parallel to the ground — and tosses the ball. Then, picking up speed, she brings the racquet 90 degrees, up to perpendicular and turns her wrist back and cocks the racquet. Shifting her weight forward, she accelerates the swing and, with her feet about six inches off the ground, meets the ball.
In Swiatek’s words, “We changed the whole movement before the shot, basically.”
Swiatek held her arms out to her sides to indicate the original position, then raised them higher into more of a “V” for the current technique.
“We’re making it more smooth and shorter, so I don’t have time to stutter under pressure.”
How much to go for? When to dial it back? Good players feast on weak second serves — and don’t mind missing a few — because the risk/reward ratio is attractive. So how do you find the balance of consistently landing an effective first serve without missing too many and getting burned on the second?
This is something Gauff has been wrestling with since recently changing things up. On her way to the quarterfinals here in Paris, she’s won 29 matches already this year but leads all players with 229 double faults. In the Rome semifinal against Swiatek, she only had four — but they cost her two critical breaks of serve and, ultimately, the match.
Changing the technique, I think it allowed me to serve faster. … I feel like I have more options when I’m serving.– Iga Swiatek
“Some people have a high toss and do perfectly fine,” Gauff said after her first-round win. “I think for me, when your toss is higher, you just have more room for error. Also, I kind of changed the way I toss, so naturally it brought it down.”
Against Julia Avdeeva, Gauff won 23 of 24 first-serve points and hit only four double faults.
