How important are aces in winning tennis matches? TennisStats reveals the surprising truth…
Smashing an ace is one of the most enjoyable ways to win a tennis point… But just how important is the ability to hit aces – and should you worry if you don’t serve many – or indeed, any?
This post looks at the real value of aces and gives some practical tips for club players, with help from the statistical experts at TennisStats…
If you’ve ever rocketed an ace down the T and left your opponent standing helplessly rooted to the spot, you’ll know just how satisfying that feeling is.
And on the other hand, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a barrage of unreachable aces, you’ll know just how hopeless and almost unfair it seems… Come on, give me a chance!
Let’s face it, obsessing about aces tends to be a bit of a male thing. There’s a definite macho element to firing rockets, that feeling of generating all your own speed and power and making your opponent look useless.
But how important are aces, really? For most amateur and recreational players, hitting a genuine ace is a pretty rare occurrence. Aces seem to come and go of their own accord – you might hit a couple in a game and then nothing for the next two sets.
And how many times have you immediately cancelled out an ace by following it up with a double fault? Arrgh!
Aces in elite tennis
At the professional level, we’ve long-known that the best servers aren’t necessarily the most successful players – certainly since the 2000s, the emergence of Andre Agassi and the end of the serve-and-volley era. The serial winners – Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray – all had great serves but they won because their all-round games were superior, while ‘serve-bots’ like John Isner, Ivo Karlovic or Milos Raonic could blast countless aces without ever racking up the trophies.
A deep dive into recent tennis stats backs this is up. This analysis from TennisStats lists the ATP top 10 players (2024) in order of the number of aces per match:
Most Aces Ranking with Win% (ATP top 10 Players) - TennisStats (2024)
As you can see, there is almost no correlation between number of aces and win percentage or ranking. Carlos Alcaraz, for instance, averages around 4.36 aces per match, right at the bottom of the list, but has a win rate of 78.3% and a ranking of 3rd in 2024 ATP.
On the other hand, Andrey Rublev hits an impressive 7.74 aces per match, but has the lowest win percentage among the top 10 ATP players, at 61.8%. And Grigor Dimitrov, despite his fantastic ace count of 8.36 aces per match, the third highest, only sits at 10th in the rankings.
However, if we order the list by First Serve Percentage – that is, the number of first serves that go in – you get a very different picture:
In the case of valid first serves, the top four players are also the top four ATP ranked players – compared to the aces table, Alcaraz and Sinner leap up the charts to truer positions, while Rublev and Dimitrov drop down.
Therefore, at the top level of men’s tennis, first serve percentage seems to be much more closely correlated with overall tennis success than number of aces per match.
Aces versus first serve percentage: lessons for club players
So what does this mean for club and recreational players? Should you stop bothering trying to hit aces and just plop your first serve in?
Let’s not go that far… But the stats from the top of the game do back up some lessons for amateur players about serving and aces.
Here are some tips:
Enjoy aces when they come – but don’t stress about them. Remember, in the overall scheme of things, they’re just not that important to winning tennis matches, even at the very top level.
…And don’t get stressed when your opponent blasts more aces than you. An ace is just a point, and is no signifier of a gulf in tennis ability.
Play the percentages on serve if your confidence dips – If your first serve is misfiring, don’t get flustered and try to hit it harder and harder in pursuit of free ace points, making things worse. Take the pace off a bit, aim for the middle and add more spin to help you get your first serve percentages up, your consistency back,and gradually rebuild your confidence until you’re ready to have another go at the big serve.
Serve to the situation – for example, if you find your opponent is struggling with moving to a particular serve – e.g. you’re acing him out wide or down the T – then by all means keep exploiting it and go for it on first serve. But if he’s getting everything back comfortably, concentrate on getting a good solid first serve and a high percentage in.
We’ll leave the final world to the GOAT himself, Novak Djokovic, who told Eurosport:
“I think my serve was probably underestimated as one of the weapons because I was so fortunate to return so well throughout my career and get myself in the rallies, moving pretty well and playing an accurate baseline game.
“But the serve was getting me out of trouble a lot in my career, giving me a lot of free points especially when I was playing my best seasons like 2011 and 2015 [when] I had a lot of great percentages on first serves."
Note the last few words of that sentence. What was getting him out of trouble wasn’t hitting aces, but ‘great percentages on first serves’. And when it comes to winning tennis matches, Novak knows what he’s talking about…
The statistics in this article are provided by TennisStats , a brilliant and free resource for all your stats on tennis – Over/Under Aces, breakpoints, score predictions and much more.
See also:
How to stop worrying about your serve
How to cut down on double faults
How to practice your second serve consistency
Tennis tactics: 4 simple, effective singles strategies for club players
Aggressive Patience - the essential strategy for winning more tennis matches
Smart tennis: why you should hit a lot more balls cross court