Why do tennis players look at the ball just moments before serving?
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Roger Federer executing his serve
While previewing or witnessing tennis matches, it is often observed tennis professionals check 3 or more balls right before serving them out. Although this tradition seems regular, the intriguing question that arises behind this is why they resort to such a practice every time.
The best possible way to answer this comes down to the analysis of hair quality on the ball. Players, to ensure the most optimal and efficient service delivery often see to it that they choose a ball with more flatly smoothness to the ball while going for the first serve to secure its faster travel whereas select a ball with a fluffy texture to enable its bouncing capability more while executing their second serve.
Gain in speed takes a toll while selecting serve balls
The reason behind most players opting for a fluffy texture on a tennis ball while playing on their second serves solely lies in the fact that they would want to concede any chances for a double fault. The texture on these balls drastically helps in reducing their speed, ultimately achieving better control over the ball pace by the players.
Tennis balls while undergoing play on-court, gradually lose their texture owing to heavy-hitting which results in a fluffy texture where one can see its hair loosened up and the pace reduced. This is a gradual process and does not happen uniformly across all court surfaces.
However, behind this tactic lies a major setback. When players experience a lot of first serve faults during their game-play, they often resort to reducing the service pace to procure fewer double faults and while doing it they opt for the ball which already has a slower pace to it while resulting in the service delivered with drastically slow in comparison to the first, opening those up to the trajectory of powerful returns by the opponent.
There also lies an underlying fact as to why they choose balls before serving. According to various tennis experts and pros themselves, the concentration ritual comes into play. The selection of the optimal balls before executing a service helps in concentrating between points which deems itself to be crucial as the sport not only requires good physicality but also good mental stability which needs conditioning between points to keep the players rolling for their best performance.
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Aarav Singh Gill
(150 Articles Published)