Alex De Minaur is the newest tennis star to offer a serve fix after Alexander Zverev’s tricky tactics at the US Open.
Alex De Minaur won against Rei Sakamoto at the Shanghai Masters and moved on to the Round of 32. The Australian hopes to win his first big trophy in 2026. Next, he’ll play Karen Khachanov for a spot in the quarter-finals. But after his win, De Minaur was more focused on fixing problems with his serve than celebrating.
His next opponent might actually support his ideas about serve changes, especially after Khachanov’s match with Alexander Zverev at the US Open. Serve timing has become a hot topic in tennis lately, especially with Zverev. He often takes a long time bouncing the ball before serving. Right now, players have 25 seconds between points, but there’s no set time limit between their first and second serve.
Former Grand Slam champ Andy Roddick suggested changing the rules to stop Zverev from taking too long between serves on the “Served” podcast. De Minaur also shared his thoughts on fixing serve issues. He agrees with having a time limit between the first and second serves, but he also wants to count a bad ball toss as a fault.
He explained, “Between first and second? Yeah, that’s fine. I think this would stop players from wasting extra time. I’ve said before, I think players should only get one ball toss. Once you toss the ball, you have to serve. If you don’t like the toss, it’s a fault.”
De Minaur said some players use bad tosses to restart their serve routine and waste time. He wants to change that to make the game faster and fairer. His ideas show how serious the serve issue is in tennis right now.
Coco Gauff’s former coach Brad Gilbert agreed with De Minaur on social media. He said, “He’s 1000% right. I’ve been saying for 40 years that it’s silly players can redo ball tosses as many times as they want. This rule should’ve changed years ago. It’s the worst rule in tennis.”
Ironically, Coco Gauff leads the WTA Tour in double faults this season and did so in 2024 and 2025 as well.