An anatomist explains how the brain works when a tennis player returns a serve traveling at 240 km/h.
Professional tennis players often serve at speeds exceeding 200 km/h, and at
What happens inside a tennis player's brain as they try to return a 148mph serve?
https://theconversation.com/what-happens-inside-a-tennis-players-brain-as-they-try-to-return-a-148mph-serve-286985
The following is a video of France's Giovanni Mpeci-Pellicard setting a new Wimbledon record for fastest serve in 2025. The serve reached an astonishing speed of 153 miles per hour (approximately 246 km/h), but it was returned by American Taylor Fritz , and Pellicard lost the point after a rally.
AN 153MPH SERVE 🤯 | Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard breaks Wimbledon serve record - YouTube
Mr. Spear first explains the mechanism by which we perceive a ball flying at high speed. Light reflected from the ball's surface is detected by the retina of the eye, converted into electrical signals, and then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve. In the brain, the visual cortex begins analyzing the ball's color, shape, speed, and direction to understand what kind of ball it is and how it is coming.
According to Mr. Spear, even under ideal conditions, it takes about 0.1 seconds for the ball to be seen and for the analysis to be completed. During that time, a high-speed serve traveling at approximately 240 km/h travels about 6.7 meters, which is about a quarter of the 23.77 meters from baseline to baseline on a tennis court. After recognizing the ball in this way, the player returning the serve needs to move to where it's coming from, get their racket ready, and swing accurately at the right time and angle. However, in reality, there isn't enough time to start moving after recognizing the ball.
As a mechanism to achieve this, Spear cites the 'brain's ability to predict the future.' While the server prepares to hit the ball, the receiver gathers information from various points, such as the height and position of the ball toss, the server's stance, the movement of their shoulders and arms, the angle of the racket face, and the speed of their swing. Spear explains that the cerebellum , located in the lower posterior part of the brain, processes this information and not only reacts to sensory information but also computationally generates an 'internal model of how to behave.'
Additionally, a special area of the visual cortex called the 'MT area' or 'V5 area' is highly sensitive to movement and calculates the speed and direction of the ball as it crosses the player's field of vision. This information is transmitted to the posterior parietal cortex via the 'dorsal visual pathway,' also known as the dorsal pathway of the brain, where the ball's position is integrated with information about the player's own body.
From there, the premotor cortex prepares for possible movements, the supplementary motor area helps organize the sequence of movements, and the primary motor cortex sends commands to the muscles of the trunk, shoulders, arms, and wrists. Simultaneously, the frontal eye field and the superior colliculus in the midbrain generate rapid eye movements not to the spot where the ball was just moments before, but to the spot where the ball is expected to come next.
Spear said, 'The fastest returns in tennis aren't just due to incredible reflexes. They're the result of a brain that's constantly predicting, verifying, and refining its actions. Players who appear to have plenty of time on their hands have an exceptional ability to predict what's going to happen next.'
The brain's predictive systems, as explained by Mr. Spear, are becoming an important research topic in neuroscience, and are proving useful in improving rehabilitation after nerve injury, understanding motor and coordination disorders, and designing robots that can interact more naturally with an unpredictable world.
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