What goes on in a tennis player's brain facing a 238 km/h ball?
skip to main content
Your browser does not support Javascript. Please turn Javascript on to get the best experience from rte.ie
Weather
Login
Discover<br>Discover
RTÉ Games
RTÉ Archives
RTÉ Brainstorm
History
Gaeilge
RTÉ Learn
Food
RTÉ Food
RTÉ Recipes
Watch<br>Watch
RTÉ Player
TV
RTÉ One
RTÉ2
RTÉ News
RTÉjr
Listen<br>Listen
Radio
Podcasts
RTÉ Radio 1
RTÉ 2FM
RTÉ lyric fm
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
Services<br>Services
Orchestra
RTÉ Weather
Century Ireland
Kids<br>Kids
RTÉ Kids
RTÉ Learn
Help<br>Help
Contact
Feedback
Accessibility
Complaints
Terms & Conditions
Individual Rights Guide
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Freedom of Information
Helplines
Information<br>Information
About RTÉ
TV Licence
Vacancies
Latest Annual Report
Advertise with RTÉ
2rn
Saorview
Newsletters
RTÉ Supporting the Arts
Policies and Reports
See all results
Updated / Thursday, 9 Jul 2026<br>12:21
Getty
'By the time your brain has processed the sight of the ball leaving the racket, it is already well on its way to the other end of the court.' Photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images
Analysis: Players can return high-powered serves with astonishing accuracy because of the brain's ability to predict the future
By Michelle Spear, University of Bristol
The fastest serve so far at this year's Wimbledon tennis championships was struck by the Argentinian Thiago Agustín Tirante on the opening day. His serve of almost 238km/h was still some way under the Wimbledon record of 246km/h, set by Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in 2025.
Despite Tirante giving his opponent less than a fifth of a second to play each serve, he lost the match in straight sets - which means his rocket serves were successfully returned on lots of points. Our emerging understanding of how the human brain works can help explain how this feat is achieved.
Whether you're a player or a spectator, the ability to see a tennis ball travelling that quickly across the court is a marvel of human physiology. At nearly 241km/h, the ball is travelling faster than anyone can watch it move. By the time your brain has processed the sight of the ball leaving the racket, it is already well on its way to the other end of the court.
From Wimbledon, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard's record-breaking 246 km/h serve in 2025 (he lost the point and match to Taylor Fritz)
Yet professional tennis players return these high-powered serves with astonishing accuracy. The reason is that they do not rely on reaction alone. Returning a tennis serve depends on one of the brain's most remarkable abilities: predicting the future.
Predicting the future
Tennis players – and spectators – face the same basic problem: the visual information arrives in their brain slightly late. Before a player becomes aware of a tennis ball hurtling across the court, light reflected from its surface has to be detected by their eyes' retinas, converted into electrical signals, then transmitted along the optic nerves to the brain. There, the visual cortex begins analysing its colour, shape, speed and direction.
Even under ideal conditions, this takes around a tenth of a second. During that time, a ball travelling at nearly 238km/h will have covered several metres. For a spectator, this delay is rarely noticeable. The brain's predictions are so accurate that the ball appears to move smoothly across the court, despite what you are seeing being a fraction of a second out of date.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ News, Conor Hunt reports on the heavy hitters in town for Tennis Ireland's Dublin Challenger event
But the player standing at the other end of the court needs to do a lot more than just watch the ball. They must move their body to that specific point on the court, position their racket and time their swing with great precision if they want to be in with a chance of winning the point.
How the brain works it all out
In fact, much of this process begins before the ball has even left the opponent's racket. It is an extraordinarily complex system. As the server prepares to strike the tennis ball, the receiver is already gathering information. The height and position of the ball toss, the rotation of the server's trunk, the movement of their shoulder and forearm, the angle of the racket face and the speed of the swing all provide clues about what is about to happen.
Elite players have, of course, spent many thousands of hours learning to recognise these subtle biomechanical cues. Their brains combine the latest cues with all that previous experience to estimate the likely speed, direction and spin of the serve – before the ball has even crossed the net.
From Patrick Mouratoglou, a masterclass in how to...