Clay Court Season Thread

[bksballer89]

Don't care for it but tennis is tennis so post anything relevant to clay tournaments here.

 

[bksballer89]

Pretty stacked field at Monte Carlo this week. Master 1000 event so it is worth watching for sure

http://montecarlotennismasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Simple-2016.pdf

 

[cezero]

My favorite time of the year. I think I'm the only one on here who ever likes clay court season. It consistently rewards players with the most complete game, including movement. Movement on clay is the only thing missing from Nole's list of A++ skills.

 

[Old Lion]

My favorite time of the year. I think I'm the only one on here who ever likes clay court season. It consistently rewards players with the most complete game, including movement. Movement on clay is the only thing missing from Nole's list of A++ skills.

I will respectfully disagree. Serves are minimized and volleys and slices are non existent. Its a 1 dimensional game. Run to 1 side flip the ball back, run to the other side flip the ball back. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[bksballer89]

My favorite time of the year. I think I'm the only one on here who ever likes clay court season. It consistently rewards players with the most complete game, including movement. Movement on clay is the only thing missing from Nole's list of A++ skills.

I agree with @Old Lion

I do watch the tourneys though. Just more of a hard court fan

 

[cezero]

I will respectfully disagree. Serves are minimized and volleys and slices are non existent. Its a 1 dimensional game. Run to 1 side flip the ball back, run to the other side flip the ball back. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Servers have to show more than just velocity to be successful on clay. Volleys aren't as big a part of the game as on grass, sure, so I'll give that to you. Literally every other part of a players tennis game/toolkit is used on clay for virtually every point, including spin variety.

Grass requires much less versatility, though the effort to slow it down has made better all-around players more successful on the surface. For most of the mid-late 90s and early 00s, with the advent of bazooka racquets, grass was painfully boring to watch outside of Federer. It was great in the 70s and 80s, and it's getting better now with versatility.

I'm not saying anything controversial here. But I do understand and appreciate the passion other fans have for other surfaces.

 

[cezero]

I agree with @Old Lion

I do watch the tourneys though. Just more of a hard court fan

Agree all you want. It's categorically absurd to say that grass or hard courts require more use of the collective toolkit of players.

Nobody in the tennis world thinks that. Thank goodness the USTA has a big initiative to get its new crop of players on clay a lot more since it is the best way to produce complete players.

 

[Old Lion]

Servers have to show more than just velocity to be successful on clay. Volleys aren't as big a part of the game as on grass, sure, so I'll give that to you. Literally every other part of a players tennis game/toolkit is used on clay for virtually every point, including spin variety.

Grass requires much less versatility, though the effort to slow it down has made better all-around players more successful on the surface. For most of the mid-late 90s and early 00s, with the advent of bazooka racquets, grass was painfully boring to watch outside of Federer. It was great in the 70s and 80s, and it's getting better now with versatility.

I'm not saying anything controversial here. But I do understand and appreciate the passion other fans have for other surfaces.

Agreed. Hard courts have been slowed a bit too these days. I dont mind real clay (the grey hard stuff) either, just hate the crushed brick.

 

[Old Lion]

Agree all you want. It's categorically absurd to say that grass or hard courts require more use of the collective toolkit of players.

Nobody in the tennis world thinks that. Thank goodness the USTA has a big initiative to get its new crop of players on clay a lot more since it is the best way to produce complete players.

Meh, Clay is nothing but defense. A drop shot here and there and maybe a lob. No net play whatsoever, no slices, no flat shots. Just flip a heavy topspin back. Bad bounces everywhere so topspin is the only shot that can be hit consistently. Hard courts require every shot and spin.

 

[cezero]

Meh, Clay is nothing but defense. A drop shot here and there and maybe a lob. No net play whatsoever, no slices, no flat shots. Just flip a heavy topspin back. Bad bounces everywhere so topspin is the only shot that can be hit consistently. Hard courts require every shot and spin.

Not many players can rely just on heavy topspin to do well on clay. I'm not saying that it isn't helpful on clay, because it is. Heavy topspin makes the ball explode off the court more. It's what Nadal thrived on, and Federer to a degree. But the majority of players (including Nole, who hits a pretty flat ball) have to rely on all of their wiles to construct points and be successful. And the more and more advances in bazooka racquet/strings technologym and increase in 2-handers on backhands stepping in and taking the ball early has mitigated a lot of the advantages heavy topspin hitters used to have. Shot variety in a rally between the majority of players is pretty wide on clay, and I'm sorry, but it's absurd to try to argue otherwise.

Nadal's a freakazoid, but throughout history, the winners of the French have not been always been heavy topspin players, and they haven't been "just defense" players. They've consistently had to use a wide set of skills to win.

Hard courts require most skills as well, but movement is much easier to master on them compared to both grass and especially clay. It's why clay courters have a very easy time adapting to hard compared to hard courters (like in the US and Canada) having a terrible time trying to adapt to clay.

Because of the ongoing homogenization of the surfaces, especially, everybody was asking what the solution was for getting all around players developed in the US. The resounding answer was to increase their time on clay...something the rest of the tennis playing world figured out a decade earlier. We finally made it a priority about 3 years ago, so it's going to take some time to yield results.

I understand that you don't care for watching tennis on the surface, and that's fine, but to try to defend the stance that it doesn't consistently require a tennis player to use their full repertoire isn't to hold much water.

 

[cezero]

Agreed. Hard courts have been slowed a bit too these days. I dont mind real clay (the grey hard stuff) either, just hate the crushed brick.

Yeah, and I actually don't care for how much they've slowed down hard courts.

 

[nuraman00]

My favorite time of the year. I think I'm the only one on here who ever likes clay court season. It consistently rewards players with the most complete game, including movement. Movement on clay is the only thing missing from Nole's list of A++ skills.

I like it too.

 

[nuraman00]

I will respectfully disagree. Serves are minimized and volleys and slices are non existent. Its a 1 dimensional game. Run to 1 side flip the ball back, run to the other side flip the ball back. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I think it depends on the type of player.

Schiavone did these pretty well when she won the FO.

 

[nuraman00]

I'm still not caught up in all the threads yet. Specifically I want to get back to the Indian Wells thread, maybe later this week.

Just wanted to say that Wawrinka seems to have the most entertaining draw in Monte Carlo. Good 2 setter against Kohlschreiber.

And I think his next one against Simon could be just as good. Will try to watch what I can from that one.

 

[bksballer89]

Just saw that Novak was eliminated today

 

[nuraman00]

Just saw that Novak was eliminated today

Wow, Vesely was unseeded too.

 

[nuraman00]

Bracket:

2016 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters – Singles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[nuraman00]

I'll also add that not all serving is minimized in clay. Having a good kick serve is more of an advantage than having a good different type of serve, on clay.

Similarly, I think that on grass, having good slice serves is probably more important than other types of serve.

 

[bksballer89]

Not sure if this is the right thread to post this on but the US Open Roof is coming along nicely.

 

[bksballer89]

Wow Rafa made quick work of Stan.

Andy did the same to Raonic.

Fed & Tsonga in final set