The answer is yes, over time, for many of the top players.

“I’ve been saying this for 35 years,” said Bill Tym, a former Vanderbilt coach who has guided several professional players and is in the United States Professional Tennis Association hall of fame. “It’s entirely psychological.”

The topic riles him. Juniors are taught that the most important aim of the second serve is to get it in play, he said, and even top players never shake the mind-set.

“It’s an insidious disease of backing off the second serve after they miss the first serve,” said Tym, who thinks that players should simply make a tiny adjustment in their serves after missing rather than perform an alternate service motion meant mostly to get the ball in play. “They are at the mercy of their own making.”

Generally, the top men’s players make about 65 percent of their first serves and 90 percent of their second serves. But when the first serve goes in, most win about three-quarters of the points, often on aces. On second serves, the win-or-lose proposition is about 50-50.

The numbers skew a bit lower for the women, but the proportions are about the same.

Nine of the top 20 men as of the Aug. 2 rankings would be better off statistically or virtually unaffected by using their first-serve technique on the second serve. The list includes Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko, Fernando Verdasco and many of those with dominating first serves: Soderling, Roddick, John Isner and Sam Querrey.