Game Theoretic Solutions to Tennis Serving Strategies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52383/itfcoaching.v20i56.404Keywords:
Analysis, Risk, Serve and returnAbstract
This paper analyzes risk-taking on serve to maximize a player’s chances of winning a point on the second serve by either serving a common low risk second serve (with a high second serve percentage) or a high risk second serve by decreasing the second serve percentage but increasing the proportion of points won if the second serve goes in. The notion of “importance” of points is defined and there is evidence to suggest that servers could be encouraged to take more risk on the more “important” points. The results could be used by coaches to help determine how much risk their players should take on the second serve. A working example between Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal is given to support the results.
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Copyright (c) 2012 Tristan Barnett, Machar Reid , Darren O’Shaughnessy, Darren McMurtrie
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