Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal14
Now a tennis question from a newbie that doesn't watch much but wants to follow our Canadians: what are differences between the various surfaces (clay/grass/hard court/other?)? Do certain surfaces favor particular types of players? Where do the Canadians generally have the best chance? I seem to remember us choosing hard courts for our home matches in the Davis Cup but I'm not sure if that was the strength of our game, the weakness for our opponents or just what we have available.
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The main types of surfaces are essentially represented by the 4 major tournaments:
Australian Open - "slow" hard court. in general, hard is considered a relatively fast surface, but AO is known for not being as quick or low bouncing as the US Open for example. favorite of 4 time champion Djokovic.
French Open - clay; slowest, highest bouncing surface. slippery, which means players have to slide into balls to move efficiently. can be played on even in light rain, which is not possible on other surfaces. long, punishing rallies that favor defensive skills and endurance. Europeans generally perform much better on this surface. property of 9 time champion Nadal, until one day he's crossing the street and gets hit by a bus.
Wimbledon - grass; rarest of surfaces due to expensive maintenance, among other things. fast, low bouncing, very slick at the beginning of the tournament when the grass is lush. gradually becomes more clay-like as time goes on and grass turns into dirt. excellent for quick strike tennis, particularly for powerful servers and volleyers. favorite and also fountain of youth for 7 time champion Federer.
US Open - "fast" hard court. like Wimbledon, friendly to big serving and power hitting. theoretically the best chance that ball crushing North American players have, but none of them have won it since 2003.
For a player like Milos, the latter 2 are his best chances because they reward his monster service game and inside out forehands. Women's tennis seems to blunt the differences between surfaces a little, mostly because breaks of serve are so common so it comes down to which one is most comfortable for movement. I'm honestly not sure which one suits Genie best since she's done very well on all of them so far. but in general if Canadians had to pick one surface, it would probably be the one played at the US Open.
