As I was catching a few moments of Wimbledon, I noticed that most of the players - men and women - bounce the ball several times before serving. It got me to wondering about the record for most bounces before a serve. So who holds the men’s and women’s records for this little part of the game?
I doubt there’s a record. More than a few bounces would get stopped by the officials in a very short time.
Djokovic used to do this. This video claims he bounces the ball 29 times here, but I only count 16.
There is no record to my knowledge, but here is a starting point.
It’s 29 if you count the bounces he does with his racket.
The only rule about this I can find in the ITF rules is, you have 20 seconds (90 when players change ends; 120 at the end of a set) from when the previous point ended to serve the ball.
Was at a sports dinner a few years ago when one of the speakers was John Newcombe.
How the conversation got to this point I can’t recall but he told the story of a match vs Jimmy Connors. Satellite circuit or an exhibition game, definitely not Grand Slam or ITF rules.
Newcombe was in front so Connors thought he’d slow the game down by excessively bouncing the ball before serving. Newcombe recognised the tactic and responded by twisting his shoe on the court surface which produced a irritating squeak each time Connors bounced the ball. So each having found a method to irritate the other they took to stretching the by-play over a couple of games. Newcomb said he thought it might have got up to a minute between serves and the crowd were clapping to the “beat” before they decided to call it quits. No idea how many times the ball was bounced pre-serve.