January 8, 2025
sify.com

Chennai: The tennis ball has been travelling the fastest on the centre court at the Nungambakkam stadium, what with some of the talented players at the ATP world tour 2004 Tata Open serving at blistering speed.

The top seed Carlos Moya into the second round touched the maximum speed with his serve-212 kmph. The second seed Thai, Paradon Srichaphan, an overwhelming favourite of the spectators, was not far behind: he has touched 204 kmph. On par with Srichaphan, also at 204 kmph was the young Russian Dmitry Tursunov, who partnered India's Mahesh Bhupathi in the doubles.

Frenchman Thierry Ascione, who pulled off the first upset over sixth seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal, also equalled Srichaphan touching 204 kmph. Prakash Amritraj, representing the Indian challenge in singles, has been touching 201 kmph.

The other fastest servers so far have been: Spaniards Tommy Robredo, Fernando Verdasco and Rafael Nadal (200 kmph), German Alexander Popp and Israel's Noam Okun (198 kmph), Spain's Albert Montanes-195 kmph and David Ferrer-191 kmph,Denmark's Kristian Pless-190 kmph, Frenchman Jeann Rene Lisnard-190 and India's Harsh Mankad 182 kmph.