In the part one of this two-part series, we look at how clay plays differently from the other tennis surfaces around the world.
Analysis of the Winning Factors on Clay with Respect to Other Surfaces
Court Philippe Chatrier at Stade Roland Garros in Paris during the 2006 French Open (photo: Wikipedia)
After Madrid, with Rome and, finally, Paris, the clay season is living its most challenging and intriguing weeks. Carlos Alcaraz is getting back to the first position in the ranking, taking advantage of a playing style that works well also on clay.
But what makes clay different?
Well, clay makes the ball slower and produces a high bounce compared to other surfaces. This makes rallies generally longer and more suitable for baseline players and players who like to play tactically using lots of spin and finding great angles.
Conversely, big servers may have big issues on clay, because one of their best shots, especially if it works mainly because of its speed, is less effective.
Let’s think about Roddick, for example: he got to at least semi-finals in every Slam tournament except Paris, where his best result was round of 16, and he got there only once, in 2009.
Or, at an even higher level, we can think about Pete Sampras, who won 14 Slams, and never went beyond semi-finals in Paris, again, getting there only once, in 1996.
But it’s not only the speed of the ball or the height of its bounce which makes a match on a clay court different: playing well on clay requires specific training, physical condition, and skillset.
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Being successful there, as Rafa Nadal has shown better than anyone else, requires patience and a strategic mind, it requires learn how to build your points minimizing risks, and avoiding unforced errors at all costs.
In fact, considering that getting to a winner shot is hard, especially against a quick opponent playing well above the net, avoiding to lose points out of distractions and unforced errors can be a key factor.
If we compare clay courts to hard courts, the main difference is the speed of the ball: we can expect high bounces on both surfaces, but faster balls on hard.
This is why rallies happen at a faster pace and, especially with a good timing on the ball, it is possible to build a winner shot early and without putting huge strength on the ball. This is probably why some highly technical and fast, but not very muscled players, such as Davydenko, obtained their best results on hard.
For what concerns grass, the surface allows the ball to generate speed, and the softness of the grass induces a lower bounce, keeping the ball close to the ground.
Then, we have a quick and low ball, which is great for big servers, and for net players, because if hitting the ball after the rebound gets harder, volley shots become a more interesting option.
After these general remarks, let’s have a look at some statistics, to identify one change, in the factors that lead players to win or to lose a match, comparing clay to hard and to grass. Our reference dataset will be constituted by grand slam single ATP matches in the last ten years, on the three different surfaces.
Clay v Grass
For what concerns the comparison between clay and grass, following our introductory considerations, we focus on the different importance assumed by the first shot: the serve.
What we can observe in more quantitative terms, through statistics, is that, for example, on Wimbledon grass, if a player has more aces than his opponent, he wins the match 66.6% of the times.
If a player has more aces than his opponent on Paris clay, he has a good, but not equally good, chance of winning the match: more specifically, he wins the match 63.5% of the times.
A higher importance of serve also implies, as the data show, that catching the (usually few) chances to break the opponent is more important on grass than on clay. In fact, the player with a higher percentage of break points turned into a break wins the match 74.1% of the times on grass and only 70.7% of the times on clay.
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Clay v Hard
On hard, offensive baseline players have probably more chances with respect to defensive ones, because the high speed of the surface makes it harder to be defensive without being forced into making mistakes.
We expect then that being in control of the rally matters: it always matters, of course, but maybe even a little more than on clay. Indeed, if we look at the numbers from this angle, we discover that the player who has a higher percentage of first serve balls in, wins the match 57.6% of the times on hard, and only 56.1% on clay.
Yet, on hard, the bounce is higher than on grass so, even against big servers and attacking players, there may be more chances in return games, for solid and creative baseline players.
In fact, break point effectiveness is, as usual, important, but does not look not as important as on grass; still, slightly more important than on clay. More specifically, the player with higher break point effectiveness wins the match 71.4% of the times, that is +0.7% with respect to the same statistic on clay, and -2.7% with respect to the same statistic on grass.
In this article, which represents the first part of our analysis of the clay surface, we focused on a comparison between clay and other surfaces.
The second part of our analysis will examine matches on clay in the last decade, comparing them to matches on clay in previous decades, to better understand if and how the key elements leading to victory on this surface have changed over time.