Why Nick Kyrgios is undoubtedly the best player on serve in 2022

| by Zachary Wimer

Despite not being the tallest player on the ATP Tour, Nick Kyrgios was the most dominant player on his serve this year.

Reilly Opelka is 2,11m tall, John Isner has 2,08m and Maxime Cressy misses only two centimetres to two meters as he stands 1,98m tall. On the other hand, Nick Kyrgios is "only" 1,93m and still dominated on his serve more than these three Americans.

Despite being out of Top 20 Nick Kyrgios is 4th best player in 2022 according to win percentage
Despite being out of Top 20 Nick Kyrgios is 4th best player in 2022 according to win percentage

When it comes to aces, there is no one to challenge Isner this year. The American hit 865 aces in 39 matches and second Kyrgios is more than 100 aces behind him, despite playing more matches.

However, when it comes to service games won, even the tallest guys can't challenge the Australian. Kyrgios won 92,88% of his service games in 2022 and second isner is almost 1% behind with 91,95%.

This is due to variety of reasons. On his first serve, Kyrgios is quite successful as he hit 67,99% of balls in, what makes him the fourth most accurate player this year. And while Isner and Opelka won more points after their first serve this year, there are certain moments where only serve can't save them.

Those moments are often break points. When having a chance to break against tall guys like Isner and Opelka, most players usually stand even further back to increase their chances of returning the ball.

That's where a few solid strokes come in handy and that's exactly something that Kyrgios posses. When facing a break point this year, no one managed to be more successful than the 2022 Wimbledon finalist as he holds a 75,54% success rate. Second Matteo Berrettini is almost 4% behind with 71,63%.

What gives the Australian major advantage is especially his fast pace. When his opponents have a chance to break, he doesn't give them a lot of time to think about what they are going to do and fires an ace before they can realize a ball is coming.

"They had to be separated" - Lapierre on incident between Kyrgios and Wawrinka
"They had to be separated" - Lapierre on incident between Kyrgios and Wawrinka

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