Watch: Bublik serves underarm 6 times in one game, Kyrgios takes sly dig at Wimbledon with ’15 thousand pounds’ joke

Wimbledon 2022 is beginning to heat up as we enter the middle weekend of the two-week long tournament, with round 3 matches having been played on Friday and continuing into Saturday. One of these matches was American Frances Tiafoe, seeded 23rd at this tournament, against Alexander “Sasha” Bublik of Kazakhstan. Bublik is known as an easygoing, often comedic player, who certainly plays to win, but also to give the audience a good time when they come to watch him.

One of the moves in his repertoire is the underarm serve, a part of the game which is extremely contentious amongst fans of the sport. Some see it as a valid tactic to disrupt opponents on return who might be standing very deep, while others argue it is deceptive and against the spirit of the game. Against Bublik, especially, opponents must anticipate that he will break it out from time to time.

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Serving at 0-3 down in the fourth set, Bublik resorted to an underarm serve six times over the span of one service game. Nick Kyrgios of Australia, who popularised the use of an underarm serve to pair with his big serve, took to Twitter to react to Bublik, claiming he “loved it” but admitted that he would have been criticised and fined for doing the same. Kyrgios, who is an outspoken and divisive figure in the world of tennis, has often been accused of showmanship and poor spirit, and not taking the sport as seriously as he should.

It is certainly a unique thing to see, especially since underarm serves are used typically as a surprise or as a change-up, rather than a true secondary form of service. However, on grass courts at Wimbledon, an underarm serve has the advantage of keeping the ball low, often forcing the opponent to played a chipped shot in return rather than taking the attack and charge of the rally. Bublik was seeking a reversal of momentum, being down 3-0 in this set after having dropped the last two in tiebreakers. He would get through that particular game, but the match ended with Tiafoe going through, 3-6 7-6 7-6 6-4, and celebrating the victory with a little jig.

It was a humorous incident in the heat of competition, with something like this never being seen before at the highest stage. Tiafoe will now prepare to face Belgium’s David Goffin in the fourth round on Sunday.