It’s the surface variables that makes tennis so special
Roar Pro By Benjamin Conkey, 5 Jun 2009 Benjamin Conkey is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- French Open, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Robin Soderling, Roger Federer, Samantha Stosur, Tennis
Pete Sampras smiles at Switzerland's Roger Federer - AP Photo/Vincent Thian
Two of the greatest tennis players of all time have one major blimp on their resumes: Sampras never won the French Open, and neither has Roger Federer. The Fed-express may well change that come Sunday night, but isn’t it remarkable that a court surface can alter things so much.
Federer can handle the top spin of Nadal on a grass court or hard court, but throw in some Roland Garros clay (as opposed to German clay) with the Spaniard at the other end and Federer looks all at sea.
If anyone’s seen Samantha Stosur play in this tournament, they’ll know how impressive her serving has been. Commentators started labelling her the best server in the women’s game. Wally Masur even said she was “doing a Nadal” with her kick serves.
But hang on a minute. She’s always been a good server. I think it’s just the variable of the clay that’s working best for her right now.
When she goes to Wimbledon, she won’t get the same amount of grip and spin, and will have to flatten the serve out. And that’s what I love about professional tennis.
You have to constantly change to suit the ground beneath you.
Players go from the hard court season, to clay, and automatically have to start sliding around. Then, within a week, they’re on grass preparing for Wimbledon.
That’s why it’s even harder to win the calendar Grand Slam now than it was in the past (pre-1980s) when three of the four tournaments were played on grass.
For the record, only two men (Don Budge and Rod Laver – twice) and three women (Maureen Connolly Brinker, Margaret Court and Steffi Graf) have won all four grand slams in a calendar year.
Pete Sampras did make the semi-final of the French in 1996, but he also lost eight times in the first or second round in his thirteen appearances.
One has to ask the question, why?
Yes, his game was built around a big serve, and you don’t get value for it on the slower clay courts. But his groundstrokes were as good as any.
The fact that he did lose so many times in the early rounds, hands the advantage over to Federer, who is clearly the most consistent player on all surfaces since Laver, having now made his twentieth straight Grand Slam semi-final.
Federer will probably win the French Open, and knowing the tennis gods, will lose in the earlier rounds at Wimbledon.
You just can’t predict it.
Just ask Rafael Nadal, defeated by a red hot Robin Soderling, who played perfect clay court tennis, which was lucky, because he would never have won if he played Wagga-style, synthetic grass tennis.
Completely different games!
Recommend this story.
The Crowd Says (6) | Page 1 of Comments
Have Your Say
- Explore:
- French Open, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Robin Soderling, Roger Federer, Samantha Stosur, Tennis
June 5th 2009 @ 11:02am
yeebarr said | June 5th 2009 @ 11:02am | Report comment
I’m not a major tennis fan so correct me if I’m wrong – Wimbledon is a grass, French Open is clay and the US and Oz are both synthetic hard courts – is that correct?
It’d be great if they could add a 4th type of surface and change the Australian courts to make it completely different! (But what could it be? Rubber? Ice? Carpet? The possibilities!)
June 5th 2009 @ 11:43am
Choppy said | June 5th 2009 @ 11:43am | Report comment
Conks,
Good read, if you’re a tennis player you realise the difference the surface makes. Playing on a real grass court is one of the most enjoyable things in sport for me but they are becoming more and more scarce now.
With the hot weather apparently the clay is rock hard this year which makes it faster and is producing a higher bounce as well which is why Stosur’s serve has been such a weapon this year. She put up a very brave effort against Kuznetsova and if she keeps that form up will be a big threat for Wimbledon where she will be keen to use her exceptional volleys along with that big serve.
Yeebar,
They do play tournaments (mainly indoor) on carpet and the synthetic courts at the US Open and Australian Open are a rubber surface so you are spot on the money.
It used to be that the US, Australian and Wimbledon were all played on grass, people used wooden racquets, wore all white.That was the time when Australia were a tennis powerhouse and when an Australian didn’t win a grand slam it was the exception rather than the rule.
June 5th 2009 @ 12:01pm
Brett McKay said | June 5th 2009 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
Yeebar, I’m thinking painted hot-mix bitupave, like all the club courts in Australia. Green for “in” areas, red for “out”. And players can only take the court in thin-soled Dunlop Volleys, and play can’t start until the egg is burning on the surface…
June 5th 2009 @ 6:44pm
ohtani's jacket, said | June 5th 2009 @ 6:44pm | Report comment
They actually played the US Open on green, Har-Tru clay between 1975 and 1977.
June 5th 2009 @ 6:47pm
ohtani's jacket, said | June 5th 2009 @ 6:47pm | Report comment
Conners won the US title on three different surfaces — grass in ’74, clay in ’76 and hard court in ’78. How’s that for surface variables?
June 5th 2009 @ 8:46pm
Greg Russell said | June 5th 2009 @ 8:46pm | Report comment
I know that facts are facts, and I don’t dispute them. However I believe there has to a measure of interpretation when it comes to grand slam records.
I’m pretty sure it was Benjamin himself who last week mentioned the little appreciated fact that for something like 10 grand slams out of 12 in a 3-year calendar period, Lleyton Hewitt was eliminated by the eventual tournament winner. Mostly it was Federer, but there was also Nadal, Safin and even Gaudio. Often this elimination was in the round of 16 or a relatively early stage like that, and so the fact that Hewitt was playing bloody good tennis was very much obscured. Personally I regard Federer as by some distance the greatest male tennis player of the Open era (I’m counting Laver as before this), and so I conclude that at most other times in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Hewitt would have won something like 4 or 5 grand slams. This doesn’t change that he only won 2, but it is necessary context.
This brings me to Federer and clay. Quite clearly he is in a completely different league to Sampras on clay. I think the best Pistol Pete did at the French was a SF appearance, and apart from a win in Rome (1994?) and a remarkable effort on a trucked-in lake of Moscow clay in a Davis Cup final (1995?), I can’t think of anything else notable that he did on clay in his entire career. Sampras always looked every bit as uncomfortable on clay as he clearly was. By contrast, Federer’s European upbringing has assured that he is comfortable on clay, and this combined with his once-in-a-generation talents has resulted in many notable tournament victories on clay, not to mention 3 finals and a SF in Paris, in all of which he perished to Nadal. Most people regard Nadal as the greatest clay-court player of all time, and certainly the only Open-era player one would consider matching him with on clay is Borg. So what this tells me is that at almost any other time, Federer would have collected several French Open titles by now. This doesn’t change that he hasn’t (yet) won any, but it is necessary context.
Similarly, one has to admit that Federer would not have won nearly as many Wimbledons in Sampras’s era – again, necessary context. However it does not change my point that in contrast to Sampras, Federer is a phenomenal player on clay, and the fact that neither has (yet) won a title at Roland Garros should in no way imply anything like equality in this respect.
Go Fed!