Is tennis easier if you're taller?

A good big man will always beat a good small man. What he was saying was that all other things being equal, size plays a big part in the result of a tennis match. Tall players usually always serve well. Taller players will always have an advantage on faster surfaces because the faster surface helps their serve. On slower surfaces like clay Rafael Nadal and Noval Djokovic (both 6'1") have been dominant. On clay, your movement and particularly your balance are more important than your height. Tennis will always reward the all-around player. Regardless of your size, tennis will always demand a variety of skills and attributes to succeed. Sometimes being tall can also be a problem. Injuries occur in tennis whether you are tall or not, but it does seem that taller players are succumbing to injuries more frequently today. It's therefore not necessary to over-think this issue of height. If you coach a player or are the parent of a player who is not that tall it's not the end of the world. There are many other areas that you can focus on to help improve your game to reach the top.

The connection between height and serving power isn’t just something we imagine – analyses of Grand Slam tennis players show our eyes aren’t deceiving us. The fastest server of all time might be considered relatively short – Australia’s Sam Groth stands only 1.93m – but served an ace at a blazing 263.4 kilometres per hour during an ATP Challenger event in Busan in 2012. The rest of the top five fastest servers in men’s tennis history, and eight of the top ten, all stood at more than 2m tall. Taller players generally have longer arms, which act like speed amplifiers. Longer arms equal faster racquet speeds. Taller players can hit the ball at point higher off the ground, so it’s easier to clear the net and yet still get the ball to land in the service square on the opposite side of the court. Taller players can hit powerful serves on a downward angle that clears the net but still lands inside the opponent’s service line. Taller players can actually use more aggressive serving techniques because they have more room for error. Taller players, with their better angles and higher contact point, can afford to use more of the explosive, throw-like technique and still land the ball within the service square of their opponent. While height definitely provides some natural advantages for serving, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.