What Is An Ace In Tennis? (& How To Serve One)

If you have seen any movies with cool nicknames, the chances are that one of them is an ace. This is common in golf, tennis, and other sports. Anyways, an ace is something called in tennis, and you will learn in this article what it is.

In tennis, an ace is a successful legal serve that didn’t touch the receiver, resulting in a point. Aces are most commonly seen at the beginning of a match because the players haven’t depleted their strength yet, allowing the most powerful serves on the game.

So if you gain the nickname “Ace” on your tennis club, you can be proud of yourself as your serving hand would be powerful and accurate.

Aces won’t be easy to achieve with pure strength alone. You will also need great accuracy because you should aim to the very corner of your opponent’s side of the field to maximize the chances of an ace. The harder it is for your opponent to receive your service, the higher your chances for an ace.

Now, the ace is the ultimate service weapon in tennis, and if you want to serve them consistently yourself, you need to know how to do it properly.

How to Serve an Ace?

If you have played a lot of tennis, the chances are that you have served an ace on multiple occasions. This can be due to an amazing serve or a failure to receive from your opponent’s part. However, to serve an ace consistently with confidence, you need to know the technique.

To serve an ace in tennis, you must hit with speed and accuracy. If your service isn’t powerful, your opponent can reach it because there is time. If you lack accuracy, your opponent can reach it as the distance isn’t far. However, powerful and accurate serves have high chances of resulting as an ace.

There needs to be at least a dash of luck in the equation without forgetting. The receivers often need to predict where the opponent will serve to reach it in time. If not, then the chances are that they serve successfully and even get an ace.

A professional tennis player can serve up to 150mph. So, even if you’re the best tennis player, receiving a ball of that speed and great accuracy on the corner of the court is nearly impossible, especially if the prediction is wrong.

Therefore, remember to practice accuracy and power when serving, and you will be called an ace in no time!

Can You Get an Ace On a Second Serve?

As you might know, each player will have two attempts to serve in tennis, just like in table tennis and many other sports. Given that aces are incredibly successful serves where the opponent can’t reach, can you serve one if you have failed your first serve?

You can get an ace on a second serve because there is no rule against it. Although second serve aces aren’t as common as first-serve aces yet, they happen consistently.

When I first learned that second serve aces were happening, I couldn’t believe my ears. It’s only natural to put more risk, power, and near the ending accuracy on your first serve as you acknowledge that you will have a second one if you fail. As it turns out, there are surprisingly many second serve aces, as I first believed that there are very, very few.

Even though the second serves are considerably slower, more well thought and, the risk is decreased, many second serve aces happen because of a reason. The receiver often expects a slower center field service and isn’t as prepared for a decent service, resulting in an ace.

When I play tennis and am on my second serve, I rarely go to an ace, even when I’m a casual player, as I like to begin a rally than to fail a serve. That being said, I should take more risks when serving, and I highly recommend that you do too. Second serve aces feel incredible.

How Common Is an Ace In Tennis?

Serving an ace is an amazing feeling as your opponent didn’t have any chance of returning it. To serve an ace, your performance needs to be very good, and your opponent needs to be unsuccessful, so there is a bit of luck. Therefore, how common are tennis aces?

Aces aren’t extremely common at a professional level, but they aren’t rare either. As a reference, only five players on the top 50 ATP 2018 rankings hit an average of one ace or more per game. Therefore, it’s more common not to see an ace during a game than to see one.

Aces aren’t that rare at the professional level as some players such as Isner or Karlovic have great serving hands, and their power and accuracy are top-notch.

However, aces are rarer in a club and recreational tennis, as the players don’t have as powerful and accurate serving ars, decreasing the chances of an ace occurring.

Anyways, it’s very difficult to say in reality whether aces are common in tennis or not, and even more so what the average number of aces per game is. This is because there are too many factors such as:

• Level of play: Generally, there are more aces seen in professional level than in lower level of play, because the playesr have so much more powerful serves.
• Players themselves: Some players have incredible serves, whereas other people have amazing return game. As a result, there may be dozen of aces during a game, whereas ther can be none at all. It depends on the two players facing eachother.
• Court material: Hard courts will bounce the ball much faster than clay or grass courts. Therefore, the court material has an drastic affect on how easy it is to serve an ace.
• Amount of players researched: Do we look at the top 50 ATP or WTA, players, TOP 100, 200, and so on. The same goes for WTA. As you might guess, the range of players and their ace ratio researched will make the outcome very different. Thus, it’s difficult to say whether aces are common in tennis.
• Luck: Finally, luck plays a part for many thing in life, including aces. In some games, aces are a common sight because one player is performing godlike, one waked up on the wrong leg in the morning, and a dozen of other variables.

Many questions in life have a yes or a no answer; however, tennis aces aren’t one of them. As you learned, there are too many variables to tell whether an ace is common in tennis, but as a general answer, aces aren’t rare.

Who Served the Most Aces In Tennis?

It isn’t surprising that the most aces served during a tennis game were done in the longest tennis game in history. That raises the question, how many aces were made?

John Isner served 112 aces in a single match, the most ever achieved. The world record was done in the first round of Wimbledon 2010 against Nicholas Mahut, who served 103 aces in the world’s longest tennis game in history, lasting 11 hours and five minutes.

Imagine the lack of energy after a tennis match, lasting over 11 hours and more than 100 aces. This wasn’t an easy thing for both John and Nicholas, yet they are forever in the history books for great numbers of aces achieved and the longest tennis game ever (for now).

Now, there is another category of most tennis aces served, and that isn’t during one match but during a career. Check out the table below, and see the top 5 players with the most aces during their careers.

Player	Country	Aces
Ivo Karlovic	Croatia	13762
John Isner	United States	13536
Roger Federer	Switzerland	11452
Feliciano Lopez	Spain	10169
Goran Ivanisevic	Croatia	10131