Serve +1

Chart of how often each of the ATP top 20 plus prospects plays a forehand, backhand or volley as their first shot after a first serve, and how often they win the point with each. On average 68% are forehands; Darderi hits the most (81%), Zverev and Medvedev the fewest (52%). Auger-Aliassime's forehand edge is the largest at 15 points (62% against 47%), Medvedev's the smallest at 2.

Serve +1 wing split

How often do the Top 20 find their forehand on serve +1 (the shot after the serve) and how much of a cost is there to them hitting backhands instead.

June 2026

Two flow charts of first-serve points for top-20 servers in 2025–26: against each other (72.4% won) and against Sinner or Alcaraz (64.8% won). Against the pair, fewer first serves go unreturned (32% against 38%), and the server's +1 shot wins less often on both the forehand (6.5 points lower) and the backhand (8.4 points lower).

The Sinner & Alcaraz Tax

Sinner and Alcaraz tax the top 20 the way they tax everyone else. And nobody can tax them back.

April 2026Essay, 2 min read5 charts

Two court diagrams of Alcaraz's ad-side first serves on hard courts over the last 52 weeks. On all points (n=667) he goes 41% wide, 15% body and 44% T, winning 72 to 74% out wide and down the T. On break points (n=56) 71% go wide or body (48% wide, 23% body, 29% T) and he wins only 59% of the wide serves.

Alcaraz has a serve problem

Possibly a crazy thing to be writing about the current world No.1 and recent Australian Open champion. But margins are fine in tennis and his biggest rival has some hard court gifts that can make even small problems loom large.

March 2026Essay, 4 min read3 charts

Bar chart of the share of returns hit with topspin rather than slice or block for the ATP top 20, sorted by topspin share; the tour average is 84% topspin. Sinner hits 95% topspin; Bublik slices or blocks the most at 32%, followed by Musetti at 29% and Ruud at 22%.

The block return

The block return is pretty rare at the top of the men's game these days.

February 2026