Patrick Mouratoglou: Why Nick Kyrgios' serve is so dangerous
Patrick Mouratoglou spoke about Nick Kyrgios ' serve in a video posted by TennisMajors. And about what makes the Australian's service so dangerous.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit:
Aug 21, 2022, 12:12 pm
Nick Kyrgios is still a few centimeters behind Reilly Opelka, John Isner and Co. And yet the Australian is hardly a bit behind the two tall Americans in terms of serve. The 1.93 meter tall man from Canberra also knows how to cause a lot of damage with his service. The past few days have shown that impressively, when the 27-year-old celebrated career title number seven in Washington.
Reason enough for star coach Patrick Mouratoglou to take a closer look at the Australian's serve: "For a guy his size, he serves gigantic without making a lot of effort. It's purely the rhythm and that's the best way," says the Frenchman. " Kyrgio's serve is super compact. The rhythm is always the same. He has an incredible touch and we see that in his game." This little touch allows the 27-year-old to serve extremely well.
Kygios is good at disguising service
"If you look at his hand, it's completely free. So he has an incredible whip effect in his service and he's very flexible.
That's why he's able to find great angles, like short cross, which is the most difficult to play," explained Mouratoglou. The full power of the Australian's serves is due to the excellent rhythm on serve.
But it's not just placement and speed that make Kyrgios' serve, it's also the difficulty of reading it: "It's completely unpredictable. He can reserve any area and he always throws the same throw. His serve is impossible to read - That was also Pete Sampras' strength," explained Mouratoglou. "The throw is always the same and at the last moment he decides where the ball should go."
Difference in the match against Djokovic
In addition, Kyrgios is one of only a few players who understands that he can hit the ball on the rise, which in turn takes up important preparation time for his opponents on the return. And? The Australian doesn't hide about the second serve either: "He's extremely self-confident with the second serve: He can pull it off with a lot of success. He never thinks it's his second serve," said the Frenchman. Rather, Kyrgios always goes in with the attitude of hitting an ace.
This was seen particularly drastically in the Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic, who had followed a completely different tactic on his second serve: "Serving with so much confidence makes a big difference. Djokovic served to put the ball in play. Nick served to hit an ace and win the point." All these points together explain why Kyrgios is such a powerful server, according to Mouratoglou. And why it is often not the size alone that makes a good service.