Player Features
Opelka a ‘solo mad scientist’ trying to find his perfect serve
Insight from Opelka and coach Denis Kudla
August 11, 2025
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Reilly Opelka leads the ATP Tour this year in aces according to Infosys ATP Stats.
By Andrew Eichenholz
Reilly Opelka on Sunday upset Alex de Minaur, who entered the Cincinnati Open third on the ATP Tour this season in return games won (31.2%). But even though the American did not drop serve, he was not completely satisfied with his delivery.
“I didn’t serve as well as I’d like to, but everything else was working,” Opelka, one of the best servers in history, said after the match.
Even though Opelka has posted top numbers this year on serve — winning 89 per cent of his service games and leading the Tour in aces — the American has actually been tinkering with his motion.
“I’m just trying to get back to my original motion, slowly,” Opelka told ATPTour.com in Cincinnati. “Now that my wrist has gotten a lot better and my range of motion has gotten back to where it was, I’m trying to get back to my serve motion where it once was. That for me was my best serving year, 2021. And then since the wrist got bad, I’ve had to change my mechanics to keep it out of pain.
“So now that the wrist is starting to get a lot better, we’re trying to get back to my old, my ‘regular serve’, I’d call it.”
The goal is to get used to the adjustment to make a higher percentage of first serves. In 2021, which Opelka referenced as his best serving season, he made 66 per cent of his first deliveries. This year, the 27-year-old is at 62 per cent, according to Infosys ATP Stats.
“His serve, believe it or not, it was actually a challenge for a while, and it still can be,” said Opelka’s coach, Denis Kudla. “Obviously, in the beginning of the year, he was healthy with everything else, but still had some issues where he wasn’t able to kind of have his old motion. So we were really trying to figure out how we could get him to serve the way he did, but he needed to have a slightly different motion.
“There was a lot of thinking involved, which too much thinking in tennis can be a little difficult. So now it got to a point where I feel like he has more than enough information and he just had to find a way to simplify and have his own cues for himself.”
Kudla and the rest of Opelka’s team, including longtime coach Jay Berger, have taken this approach: They are available for their charge if he has any questions or wants to discuss anything, but given Opelka is an all-time great server, they allow him to find what feels best for him.
“He’s like that solo mad scientist on that project, and I actually agree with that,” Kudla said. “I think sometimes, things like that can just be feel and the player knows best.”
Former No. 53 in the PIF ATP Rankings Kudla believes that his player is serving well and while there have been moments it has not been perfect, as Opelka referenced in Cincinnati, he is on “the correct trajectory”. The four-time ATP Tour titlist did not play a tour-level match between August 2022 and July 2024 due to hip and wrist injuries, so it takes time.
“I think it just comes back from the injury for a long time. With the arm and the wrist and the hips, those are massive factors to having a great serve,” Kudla said. “Not only was he just not on the court for so long and to find it again it’s not that easy, but everything that you need from a physical point of view has been hindered permanently. So I think that’s where it’s tough. But I still think he has the best serve in the world. I don’t think anybody disagrees with that.”
Now it is just about finding that serve more often and more consistently. According to Kudla, Opelka has not made big changes to his motion.
“It’s such subtle things that you just can’t see unless you really understand it or are a tennis nut. It’s things like positioning of the right arm, hand, elbow, all that stuff,” Kudla said. “So again, right now it’s on him. I’m a believer of just the toss is everything, you’ve got to get the toss in the right place and then you got to have a fluid motion. The rest, when you have the timing and the rhythm, your motion almost doesn’t even matter.”
Opelka is No. 65 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings and can climb further with a deep run this week in Cincinnati, where he faces Francisco Comesana in the third round. The American is not content that he climbed from outside the Top 300 this time last year to where he is now.
“His standard is so high. When you’ve been that good, 17 in the world, he wants to be there so badly again and is willing to do whatever,” Kudla said. “His bar for what’s good is very high, and that’s what all the great players do. So, for him, this isn’t where he wants to be. He wants to be even better.”