RACQIX ACADEMY BLOG

Serve plus one: the shot after the serve decides the point

Watch a service game closely and count how many points the serve wins outright. Even at tour level, most serves come back. The server’s real advantage is not the serve itself — it is the shot that comes next, hit while the returner is still recovering from a stretch, a block or a scramble. That shot has a name: the serve plus one, written serve+1. And on most service points, it — not the serve — is the shot that decides who wins.

The serve buys you a forehand

The pattern is planned, not improvised. Across the top 20, about 68% of the first shots hit after a first serve are forehands (Serve Plus One). That number is too high to be an accident of where returns happen to land. Servers choose serves that pull the returner wide or jam them, then hold a position that favours the forehand side, because the forehand is the shot they most trust to take control. The serve is the question; the +1 is the answer the server has rehearsed in advance.

This changes what a good serve is. A serve does not need to be an ace, or even a near-ace, to do its job. A wide serve that drags the returner off the court has done its job if the reply floats short or central — because now the +1 can be hit into open space, with the returner still travelling back. A bigger serve that comes back deep and at your feet may leave you worse off than the slower serve that bought you a forehand you could step into.

Read the return, not your serve

The +1 decision starts the moment the return leaves the returner’s strings. Three reads matter. Depth: a short return is an invitation to step inside the baseline; a deep one asks for a solid, higher ball, not a hero shot. Width: a return pulled wide of the middle leaves the opposite corner open behind the recovering returner. Height: a floating return can be taken on the rise and pressed; a skidding, low one needs margin first. Players who struggle with serve+1 usually struggle here — they decided what to hit before the return told them anything, and the rehearsed forehand becomes a forced error when the return refuses to cooperate.

The mistake: treating the +1 as a winner

The most common serve+1 error is swinging at the first ball as if it has to end the point. It does not. The +1 is an attacking ball hit from a position of advantage, and its job is to deepen that advantage: into the open court, behind the recovering returner, or heavy and deep enough that the next ball is the one that finishes. Aiming at a line because you feel the point is already won gives the advantage back for free. The second mistake is the opposite — rolling the +1 back passively after a good serve, and letting the returner’s scramble turn into a neutral rally they were never supposed to reach.

Rehearse it like a serve

Because the pattern is planned, it can be practised as one unit. Serve wide, then play the +1 forehand into the open court. Serve at the body, then expect the blocked return through the middle and take the forehand early. Decide the pair before you toss the ball, then judge the pair — not the serve alone — when the point ends. Over a set, your serve+1 pattern is a bigger lever on your service games than a few extra kilometres per hour.

Train it in the Academy: the Serve and the first ball pattern collects the lessons behind this article, including Wide first serve, open-court +1 and T serve and the first groundstroke. Train this pattern in the Academy →