Glossary of Tennis Terms - S

S

• second service: Second and final of the two serves a player is allowed at the beginning of a point.
• seed: Player whose position in a tournament has been arranged based on his/her ranking so as not to meet other ranking players in the early rounds of play. For a given tournament there are specified number of seeds, depending on the size of the draw. For ATP tournaments, typically one out of four players are seeds. For example, a 32-draw International Series tournament would have eight seeds. The seeds are chosen and ranked by the tournament organizers and are selected because they are the players with the highest ranking who also, in the estimation of the organizers, have the best chance of winning the tournament.
• serve: Also, as a noun, service. To begin a point by hitting the ball into the opponent's half of the court.
• service game: With regard to a player, the game in which the player is serving (e.g. "Player A won a love service game" means that Player A has won a game where (s)he was serving without the opponent scoring).
• serve and volley: Strategy to serve and immediately move forward to make a volley.
• set point: Situation in which the player who is leading needs one more point to win a set. If the player is serving in such a situation, (s)he is said to be "serving for the set".
• Serena Slam: Serena Williams won 4 Majors in a row, but her Australian championship was in the next year. She won the French, Wimbledon and the US Open in 2002 and the Australian Open in January 2003. This could be considered a Grand Slam because she won four majors in a row, and interestingly the Australian used to be played at the end of a year, but was moved to January to entice more top players to play it in hopes of starting a Grand Slam run. At the beginning of a year, any player could hope to start a Grand Slam, but at the end of a year, at most one and almost always zero players had a chance of completing a Grand Slam in Australia.
• shank: Significantly misdirected shot, the result of hitting the ball in an unintentional manner, typically with the frame of the racket. Such shots typically go very high in the air, go into the stands or an adjacent court, and/or land far outside the lines. However, it is possible to hit a shank that lands validly in the court.
• singles: Game played by two players.
• singles sticks: Pair of poles which are placed underneath the net near the singles sideline for the purpose of raising it for singles play.
• sitter: Shot which is hit with very little pace and no spin, which bounces high after landing, thus being an easy shot to put away.
• sledgehammer: Two-handed backhand winner down the line.
• slice: Shot with underspin, or a serve with sidespin.
• smash: Strongly hit overhead, typically executed when the player who hits the shot is very close to the net and can therefore hit the ball nearly vertically, often so that it bounces into the stands, making it unreturnable.
• spank: To hit a groundstroke flat with a lot of pace.
• special exempt ("SE"): Players who are unable to appear in a tournament's qualifying draw because they are still competing in a previous tournament can be awarded a spot in the main draw by special exempt.
• spin: Rotation of the ball as it moves through the air, affecting its trajectory and bounce. See backspin, topspin, and underspin.
• split step: a footwork technique in which a player makes a small hop just before the opponent hits the ball.
• spot serving/server: Serving with precision, resulting in the ball landing either on or near the intersection of the center service line and service line or singles tramline and service line.
• squash shot: Forehand or backhand shot typically hit on the run from a defensive position, either with slice, or from behind the player's stance.
• stick volley: Volley hit crisply, resulting in shot with a sharp downward trajectory.
• stopper: Player who will not win or go deep in a tournament but is good enough to stop a top seed from advancing.
• straight sets: Situation in which the winner of a match does not lose a set. A straight set may also mean a set which is won by a score of 6-something; i.e. is won at the first opportunity and does not reach five games all.
• strings: Material woven through the face of the racquet. The strings are where contact with the ball is supposed to be made.
• string saver: Tiny piece of plastic that is sometimes inserted where the strings cross, to prevent the strings from abrading each other and prematurely breaking.
• stroke: Striking of the ball.
• "sudden death" tie-break: Version of the tiebreak played as the best of nine points, with the last being a deciding point to clinch the set.
• super tiebreak: A tiebreak variation played to ten points instead of seven; used in some tournaments to decide a match instead of playing a third set.
• sweetspot: Central area of the raquet head which is the best location for making contact with the ball.