A bizarre tennis serve technique, halfway between overarm and underarm, strikes again

The underarm serve and its legitimacy continues to be a divisive issue in tennis, but on Tuesday in French Open qualifying, tennis fans were again treated to its even stranger cousin.

Step forward Zsombor Piros, the world No. 175 from Hungary, who once more used his bizarre serving tactic to outfox an opponent. First seen by the wider tennis public in a Davis Cup tie against Austria in September, Piros used the serve at an arguably bigger moment, down set point in the first set of his first-round qualifying match against Portugal’s Henrique Rocha.

The serve sees Piros barely throw the ball into the air, before patting it over the net to his unsuspecting opponent. As against Lukas Neumayer in that Davis Cup tie, Rocha was completely outfoxed, and the serve bounced twice for an ace.

Piros appeared perilously close to committing a foot fault, which happens when a player touches the baseline or jumps into the court before striking the ball, but it was not called against him.

Aesthetically, it looks like an amalgamation of every beginner tennis player hitting a serve. But despite being an eyesore technically, it’s so unorthodox and hard to spot coming from the toss (more so than an underarm serve) that it’s a difficult thing to counter. On this occasion, Piros held out his racket in apology to Rocha, seemingly acknowledging the strangeness of what he was doing — even if it’s perfectly legal.

After saving the first set point with the unusual serve, Piros saved the second and went on to hold for 5-4, but Rocha served out the set and ultimately went on to win the match 6-4, 7-6(4).

Piros will have to decide whether to continue using the serve, which his opponents may begin to expect. There was no dissent from the crowd, which can sometimes react with hostility to an underarm serve. At the Barcelona Open last month, Nuno Borges was booed and given a frosty handshake after producing an underarm serve ace up match point against Tomás Martín Etcheverry.

Both serves are totally legitimate tactics though, and work particularly well on clay courts where players stand even further back than normal to return.

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