The serve is the most technically difficult stroke in tennis. Unlike professionals, who practice their serves relentlessly and develop them into serious weapons, most recreational players spend more time focused on ground strokes and volleys, leaving serves and overheads last in the hierarchy of priorities, and therefore, weaker. Forcing your opponent to start the match with their weakest stroke is your advantage.

In the first game of a match, neither player has found their rhythm yet. Both players are nervous, and the first few games are often messy, tentative, and full of errors on both sides. Gilbert notes that most players serve better later in a match, once they have found their rhythm and settled into the pace of play.

The secret advantage. When a player chooses to serve first and gets broken in that first game, she hands her opponent an immediate psychological edge that can set the tone for the entire set. She already feels defeated in the first game.

There is only upside for the receiver: if you break your opponent’s serve in the first game, then you start the match with an advantage and a rattled opponent. If you fail to break your opponent’s serve, no damage is done: you serve next, resetting the psychological score card.