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Return position

Court diagram of where top-10 players make return contact on wide first serves in 2025–26, split by service box and by the server's hand. On the ad side they make contact 2.63m outside the singles line against left-handers and 1.60m against right-handers; on the deuce side it is 1.34m against left-handers and 2.30m against right-handers.

Out Wide, Out Wider

Lefty servers really do seem to have a special something on slice wide serves.

April 2026

Court maps of where Sinner and Alcaraz make contact when returning first serves, split by hard court and clay and coloured by point won, lost, return winner or error. Sinner averages 1.63m behind the baseline on hard and 2.78m on clay; Alcaraz averages 1.96m on hard and 3.22m on clay, with a second, deeper cluster around 5m on clay.

Return Contact Point

A nice way to look at differences in hard and clay court strategy is return positions.

April 2026