Ah, I have a soft corner for Petra too.  But Happy with What You Have to Be is the soundtrack of Petra fans.  Still, loved it when she crushed overhyped Genie Bouchard on Centre Court.  Crushed isn't the word, total annihilation.    But that's actually why I am pulling for Pliskova, the safer if more boring version of Petra.

Wow, didn't know this about Kerber.  I do know she is an amazing athlete.  Her squat shots are the best bar none. Serena does hit that shot very well as with mostly everything but I don't think even she can match Kerber on the squat shots.  Maybe the men can but we don't get to see it with all the heavy topspin in the men's game. If only Kerber had Graf's incredible forehand and backhand slice...still, I see now that Graf really did think Kerber would be the one to halt Serena's juggernaut.

Never say never but if a player of Kerber's age and mileage doesn't already have a big serve, she's not going to get one now.  But what the coach may help her with is developing more variety and making her feel more confident because at the moment her second serve is rather predictable and very much on the slower side. For all that, it's already a much better serve than say Muguruza, not least because of her tricky lefty angle.

But has he actually said THAT - that just like that he's going to give her a big serve?  I would be very surprised if he did.  There's a difference between improvements - pros keep on improving technique through their playing years - and a dramatic transformation of a stroke as fundamental as the serve.  In the USO final, Kerber's average first serve speed was 94 mph, the same as Pliskova's fastest SECOND serve.  Kerber's fastest first serve of 103 mph was barely faster than Pliskova's average first serve speed of 102 mph (her own fastest being 111 mph).  And Pliskova is not the biggest server on the WTA, not even close.  Pliskova's own speed range is comparable to Graf and Graf would not be considered a big server today though certainly a very effective one. I still think what he and Kerber will work on is getting her second serve speed closer to that of her first serve - at an average of 77 mph, it is a real liability and would be even more so but for her leftie angle going across the right handed opponent.  Her approach will be like Nadal, to just serve strong enough that it gets the point started without damage being inflicted and then wear down opponents in the baseline rallies.

Ok, that is certainly workable because one can always improve placement and disguise without making it one of the fastest serves on tour.  E.g Fed serves barely faster than Serena but he has a whole variety of serves which makes him harder to return than Raonic's straight-to-racquet 145 mph bombs.

BaldJean wrote: as to Graf not being one of the fastest servers: wrong; her fastest serve was about 180 km/h. serves have generally become a lot faster over the years. that's not because players hit harder today, it is because of the equipment of today. give Serena Williams a racket and a ball of the times Graf used to play, and she won't serve any faster than her.

As to the first part, I was not aware of a 180 kph serve by Graf.  I remember that her fastest was around 110 mph and that's close enough.  At any rate, Serena can go past 200 regularly.  That 20 kmh bump doesn't sound like a lot but it is.  Regarding equipment, Graf played with what was then considered one of the best racquets around - the Dunlop Max 200G. She had to change to a Wilson in '94 because Dunlop had to discontinue that racquet. Serena played with retail racquets for quite sometime and even today does not bother much about her equipment.  She's strange that way.  But the reason Graf cannot serve as fast as Serena is mainly because Graf gets into trophy position before tossing the ball. This reduces her leverage as she then brings up her hitting arm to the ball.  Whereas Serena's is textbook, one of the few perfect serves on the WTA.  It doesn't hurt that she is such a hulk in terms of build too, of course.  But Graf had to use tremendous racquet head speed to compensate for this flaw in her serve action.  

I am also excited about Canada's Dennis Shapovalov, a great talent again.  Hopefully, these guys can make up for the relative mediocrity of Dimitrov/Nishikori/Cilic/Raonic (only one slam between them to date).