Does your tennis serve routine really need to be identical before every point? 🎾 Same number of bounces. Same timing. Same sequence. It’s familiar coaching advice. But a study by Carvalho and colleagues (2026) offers a reason to question how rigid that advice should be. Researchers analysed 611 first-serve preparations from 10 professional tennis players at the 2008 Estoril Open. Every player showed variation in their preparation time, types of behaviour and number of actions. Longer rallies were associated with longer preparation. Across the sample, players also took longer after losing a point and before points classified as critical. Preparation changed with the match situation. Through an ecological dynamics lens, the authors interpret these adjustments as potentially helping players regulate themselves in response to changing demands. That does not mean routines are useless—or that changing your routine will improve your serve. This was a small observational study, not an...