Mana Games

[anrox335]

Can the height/spin of the kick serve be increased? I want some serves to reach above the opponent's shoulders

[manutoo]

Hello,

do a safe serve : a slower speed will lead to a higher bounce.

[anrox335]

The ball goes till the shoulder heights at max, and the opponent doesn't have to reposition most of the time. The opponents should have some trouble with his vertical positioning for high serves.

[manutoo]

Do you have the Kick Serve talent ?

It's relatively hard to go higher than the shoulder height ; it can happen, but likely not in all conditions. You can send me a Bug Report after a couple of not-high-enough Kick serve and I'll have a look.

[anrox335]

I sent a couple of reports regarding the kick serve height. It never seems to make the opponent uncomfortable. If you look at https://youtu.be/qorFNY2lSN8?si=ufFRDvla_OE3MReO&t=758 , you can see that Zverev's serve's peak height is regularly above Alcaraz's shoulders for both the 1st and 2nd serve. I was hoping to push the opponent back using the kick serve on clay courts like Zverev is doing to Alcaraz.

[manutoo]

You play with the XKT Mod which slightly lowered the bounce height on clay.

You still can reach the height of your opponent's head on your slower serves.

Try to twist it (ie: add a bit of slice) with the Twist serve talent, maybe you'll get a bit higher bounce.

[anrox335]

Same is happening on the non-XKT French Slam court. Even the kick serve with slight top spin is not reaching above shoulder height regularly.

[manutoo]

Your opponent is more than 4.5m behind his baseline to return a ball that is at his head height, while your serve is around 155km/h. That seems ok to me.

[anrox335]

I rechecked with a human player, and you are right. The height is good for the default French Slam. However, the issue seems to be how easily the opponent returns such high balls. He's even able to use top spin shot for the head-high balls, which should be extremely difficult.

[manutoo]

The topspin is limited on high ball (ie: above head), but it's not super low either. At shoulder height, it's possible to put maximum topspin.

[anrox335]

The top spin and other shots on high ball are usable right now, but I think only slice should be working in such situations. The high balls should be forcing the player to either position himself to hit before the rise, or take a step back. It would be great if other shots besides the slice are nerfed for balls significantly over the shoulder height.

[manutoo]

In the video you posted, we can see that Alcaraz returns such balls with solid topspin shots whenever he's not late on the ball, and slices them only when he's late.

[anrox335]

Sorry, I was talking in general and not specifically about the video. I'll send new reports when I encounter new instances of high balls being hit with top spin. I agree that you can return the ball with top spin if you are not late, but only if you are not taking the ball on the rise. For on the rise balls at such speeds, the error rate should be higher for most non-slice shots.