{"id":171572,"date":"2025-09-21T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/171572\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T10:00:13","slug":"john-mcenroe-says-reilly-opelka-has-a-problem-on-his-serve-which-is-stopping-him-reaching-the-top-20-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/171572\/","title":{"rendered":"John McEnroe says Reilly Opelka has a problem on his serve which is stopping him reaching the top 20 in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reilly Opelka came up short in his opening match at the 2025 Laver Cup.<\/p>\n

Returning to Team World after a four-year absence, Opelka took on Norway\u2019s Casper Ruud in the first match of the 2025 Laver Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fighting hard, Opelka pushed Ruud<\/a> close in both sets, but struggled to keep up with the world number 12, who produced a world-class serving performance.<\/p>\n

\"CasperPhoto by Ezra Shaw\/Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n

Eventually, Opelka lost to Ruud<\/a> in straight sets, 4-6, 6-7 [4-7] in San Francisco, USA.<\/p>\n

While Ruud impressed many with his serving efforts, the same could not be said about Opelka<\/a>, as one tennis legend has now identified the problem with his serve that is holding him back.<\/p>\n

John McEnroe says Reilly Opelka must \u2018hit his spots better\u2019 if he wants to be a top 20 player<\/p>\n

Reacting to Opelka\u2019s defeat to Ruud, ex-Team World captain, John McEnroe<\/a>, had this to say about the 28-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, if he wants to get back in the top 20, you can see athletically at seven feet tall, he\u2019s a pretty damn good athlete, but he\u2019s got to hit his spots better on his serve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t do that for me consistently enough, and therefore, he becomes more hesitant about coming forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ReillyPhoto by Eakin Howard\/Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n

Opelka was once ranked inside the world\u2019s top 20, reaching a career-high of 17th in 2022, but now sits outside the top 50.<\/p>\n

RankNameCountryPoints1Carlos AlcarazSpain11,5402Jannik SinnerItaly10,7803Alexander ZverevGermany5,93010Karen KhachanovRussia3,28020Alejandro Davidovich FokinaSpain2,22550Marcos GironUSA1,00062Reilly OpelkaUSA89575Quentin HalysFrance806100Emilio NavaUSA633200Luca Van AsscheFrance267Select players in the ATP top 100<\/p>\n

The American currently trails world number 20 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina<\/a> by 1,330 points, leaving him a long way off the top players on tour.<\/p>\n

McEnroe believes adjustments to his serve could fire Opelka back into the top 20, but how does his serve stack up against his ATP Tour<\/a> rivals?<\/p>\n

Reilly Opelka has the seventh-best serve in men\u2019s tennis<\/p>\n

According to \u2018Serve Rating\u2019, Opelka has one of the ten best serves in men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n

RankNameServe Rating1st Serve %Win % on 1st ServeWin % on 2nd Serve% Service games wonAverage aces per match1Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard297.364.5%79.2%53.7%89.6%14.92Jannik Sinner296.360.6%78.9%59.6%92.0%6.73Taylor Fritz296.263.9%79.4%54.3%89.3%11.14Alexander Zverev295.271.2%75.2%54.7%88.3%7.95Novak Djokovic294.066.5%76.8%55.9%88.8%8.06Matteo Berrettini292.268.8%75.8%52.2%86.6%10.27Reilly Opelka291.961.4%78.9%51.4%88.3%16.18Ben Shelton291.765.1%75.8%55.7%88.7%9.49Carlos Alcaraz287.464.1%74.7%57.3%88.0%5.910Brandon Nakashima286.366.0%74.5%53.4%84.9%8.7ATP Tour Serve Rating (Past 52 weeks)<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Opelka leads the ATP Tour for average number of aces per match with 16.1, although it\u2019s elsewhere that he often struggles.<\/p>\n

His first serve % is lacking compared to some of the other top servers on tour, and he has similar issues with his win % on second serve.<\/p>\n

\"ReillyPhoto by Kate McShane\/Getty Images for LTA<\/p>\n

Should he improve those areas of his game, then perhaps Opelka could find himself charging back towards the top 20 before too long.<\/p>\n

For now, Opelka will focus on the Laver Cup, supporting his team on day two.<\/p>\n

Only time will tell if Opelka will play another match at the 2025 Laver Cup, having been omitted from Saturday\u2019s line-up.<\/p>\n

Day two line-up1. Alexander Zverev vs Alex de Minaur2. Holger Rune vs Francisco Cerundolo3. Carlos Alcaraz vs Taylor Fritz4. Holger Rune\/Casper Ruud vs Alex de Minaur\/Alex Michelsen<\/p>\n

Alexander Zverev and Alex de Minaur will kick off day two of the Laver Cup at 14:00 PDT on Saturday, September 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reilly Opelka came up short in his opening match at the 2025 Laver Cup. Returning to Team World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[430,1702,24000,99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-171572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-john-mcenroe","10":"tag-reilly-opelka","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}