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FastestThings

Women's Tennis

Serena Williams

207 km/h serve at the 2013 Australian Open, hit against Garbiñe Muguruza and again against Ayumi Morita.

Also known as Serena 207
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Ball speed

Published as 207 km/hPublished as 207 km/hPublished as 207 km/h

Serve radar at the 2013 Australian Open. Serena Williams told ASAP Sports the serve against Garbiñe Muguruza went 207. Sports Mole prints 207 km/h against Muguruza and again against Ayumi Morita. The BBC prints 207 kph. 128 mph, 128.6 mph and 128.7 mph are conversions of 207 km/h. No single calendar day is stored, because the two serves were on different days.

OfficialASAP Sports (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 2.0× a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • A football field in 1.6 sConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)
  • London to New York in 26 h 54 minConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

This list

Why it's so fast

A WTA main-draw serve is the same throw, timed on the match radar. The list keeps a figure three independent pages print, and it leaves a one-page reading off.

  1. Contact speed

    The ball is fastest as it leaves the strings. What the returner sees is already that reading, not a later guess.

  2. Main draw only

    Qualifying, ITF, and a figure that only one compilation prints are not added. The ranked speed is the one the citations share.

This is how the category works. A note written for this entry appears here once it is in the database.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 207km/h129mph57.5m/s112knRanked figure

    Serve radar at the 2013 Australian Open. Serena Williams told ASAP Sports the serve against Garbiñe Muguruza went 207. Sports Mole prints 207 km/h against Muguruza and again against Ayumi Morita. The BBC prints 207 kph. 128 mph, 128.6 mph and 128.7 mph are conversions of 207 km/h. No single calendar day is stored, because the two serves were on different days.

    The ASAP transcript is dated 17 January 2013, after the Muguruza match. Sports Mole, dated 19 January 2013, says she repeated 207 km/h against Ayumi Morita on Saturday. The BBC prints 128.7 mph, 207 kph.

    Official
    ASAP Sports (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Server
Serena Williams
Event
2013 Australian Open
Speed
207 km/h
Matches
Muguruza and Morita

Context

Background

On the ASAP Sports transcript of 17 January 2013, after beating Garbiñe Muguruza, Serena Williams says the serve went 207. The question that drew that answer asked if it was 128 miles an hour. Sports Mole prints a service of 207 km/h in that second-round win, and says she repeated it against Ayumi Morita. The BBC's day-four stats print Serena Williams at 128.7 mph, 207 kph.

The ranked figure is 207 km/h. 128 mph, 128.6 mph and 128.7 mph are conversions of that reading, not extra serves. The two 207 km/h serves are the same figure on different days, so one calendar day is not stored as if it were the only serve.

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.