ATP: Lord of the Aces: John Isner remains serve king

For the fifth time in his career, John Isner is the professional with the most aces on the ATP tour. With Alexander Zverev, a German player has also made it into the top ten of the year.

Quality prevails. After ace-queen Karolina Pliskova, John Isner was able to defend his “last year’s title”. The US-American has served breathtaking 1123 aces in the past season, almost 400 more than his second-placed compatriot Sam Querrey (742) fired.

Isner, who already led the Ace standings in 2010,2012,2013 and 2016, is one of the most unpleasant rivals on the tour because of his impact strength. Tennis-Methuselah Ivo Karlovic also holds this title. The 38-year-old Croatian occupies fifth place in the annual ranking with 730 aces – a remarkable number in only 35 matches in 2017!

Only Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was able to briefly interrupt the ten-year dominance of the brute force. In 2011, the Frenchman took the lead with 825 Assen – otherwise, Isner and Karlovic always had the lead.

Alexander Zverev is well on the way to entering similar spheres. With 611 Assen the 20-year-old from Hamburg occupies seventh place in this category. A marked improvement over the previous year, when Zverev served “only” 419 unattainable serves.

Unlike Roger Federer (550,10th place), Rafael Nadal did not make it into the top ten of the Ace-Kings, as expected. On the other hand, no professional was more successful than the Spaniard when it came to the second serve (61 percent).