Opelka shares what it takes to hit a 160 mph serve

Reilly Opelka won an expectedlychaotic first round at the BB&T Atlanta Open on Tuesday, 6-3, 7-6 (1), over Alexander Bublik, setting up a round-of-16 match on Wednesday with top seed John Isner, in what will be the big-serving giants' third meeting this year.

Of the seven sets they've played in 2019 so far, all of them have gone to tiebreaks, which is neither surprising nor remarkable. What is notable, though, is that Opelka, the newcomer and supposed underdog, won both matches, at the Australian Open and New York Open.

The Australian win, in four sets in the first round, was the tallest Grand Slam match on record. And, in the New York semifinals, they set the record for the most combined aces in a best-of-three match: 81 (43 for Opelka and 38 for Isner).

That victory carried Opelka to his first ATP final and his first ATP title, for which Opelka credits the recent improvement in his serve, specifically his first-serve percentage.

Isner and Opelka both win 81 percent of their first-serve points, so the key to winning a server's duel, Opelka believes, is being the one to land more of those first serves. He says he chases Isner's first-serve percentage, which nears 75.

"We've made a lot of adjustments," Opelka told Baseline. "We moved my toss, which helped me a ton. I started tossing the ball further in front."

In person, this is visibly noticeable. His seven feet plus extended arm and racquet leaning into the court make the distance Opelka needs to serve seem physically shorter.

"I'm landing about two feet further inside the baseline now than I was before," he said. "Just that little adjustment made a huge difference."

Opelka also talked about the mechanics of his serve in a recent Wired video, "Why It's Almost Impossible to Hit a 160 mph Tennis Serve."

On the question posed by the video, Opelka said a world-record serve would never happen at a place like Roland Garros, where it's often cool and wet outside.

"If we do see a serve peak over 160," Opelka said, "I would think it would happen somewhere on a hot, fast hard court, somewhere like in Atlanta or Washington, D.C."

It would also likely be struck by someone like Opelka or Isner, who won the Hall of Fame Open in Newport last week. So don't sleep on Wednesday's match just because the tactics may be unconventional. Their last two battles have been special, in their own ace-raining, skyscraping kind of way.