Argentina Open, Buenos Aires, Argentina ATP 250

[Carol]

^ Or tell that to Federer and Sampras. Kind of easy to dig up examples supporting either side of the argument.

Federer always has played well on clay

 

[DarthFed]

Yes he has but he has played twice as well on every other surface.

 

[Carol]

On others surfaces the serve is fundamental, on clay they have to work more to make every point

 

[Billie]

Yes he has but he has played twice as well on every other surface.

Well he faced the king of clay most of the times, you don't expect Fed's results to be better than they are, do you?

How about Guga? It didn't hamper him at all. Dom made 5 ATP finals, winning 4 of them, all on clay. So he must be doing something right there.B-)

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

theim will be looking to make some big moves in the up coming European clay swing, with 4 big tourneys on his fave surface, he wants to reaching the odd qf/sf to cement his growing reputation, at 22yrs old, the future is looking good.

 

[herios]

theim will be looking to make some big moves in the up coming European clay swing, with 4 big tourneys on his fave surface, he wants to reaching the odd qf/sf to cement his growing reputation, at 22yrs old, the future is looking good.

He may just make a statement in Rio right away, winning that title too.

 

[Carol]

He may just make a statement in Rio right away, winning that title too.

Really? I doubt it unless Rafa continues playing so bad or he would have again another opponent like Almagro in the finals who has been with the foot and shoulder injuries for long time.......

 

[DarthFed]

Well he faced the king of clay most of the times, you don't expect Fed's results to be better than they are, do you?

How about Guga? It didn't hamper him at all. Dom made 5 ATP finals, winning 4 of them, all on clay. So he must be doing something right there.B-)

No, Roger did very well on clay. I'm just pointing out it is his worst surface and I stand by the thought that for most players having a 1HBH is a disadvantage on clay. Most, not all!

Thiem is obviously doing a lot right on clay and I'd expect him to start winning on HC's pretty soon too.

 

[Carol]

Yes, but I hope that he doesn't follow the same steps like the others young players "bread for today hungry for tomorrow'' o_O

 

[Billie]

No, Roger did very well on clay. I'm just pointing out it is his worst surface and I stand by the thought that for most players having a 1HBH is a disadvantage on clay. Most, not all!

Thiem is obviously doing a lot right on clay and I'd expect him to start winning on HC's pretty soon too.

yeah, that is the obvious progression for young players. These days everybody plays well on all surfaces. Some prefer hard courts and are more comfortable on them, some clay, but there are no top players that are really bad on one particular surface.

 

[Denis]

Yes, European players grow up on clay but that doesn't mean it's going to be their best surface. In many cases it is their worst. Having a one-handed backhand on clay is generally a huge disadvantage.

Having a powerful one-hander is an advantage on clay. See Guga, wawrinka, thiem, Muster almagro etc. with that you can hit through the court which is harder to do with a double handed bh on clay.

Having a weak Graflike one hander like feli Lopez or Mahut is of course going to kill you on clay. Federer is closer to the latter than the former camp. His backhand is okay, but certainly not a weapon. It only does him good if he takes it early to hit a winner by surprise and he cannot do that on clay.

 

[Moxie]

Having a powerful one-hander is an advantage on clay. See Guga, wawrinka, thiem, Muster almagro etc. with that you can hit through the court which is harder to do with a double handed bh on clay.

Having a weak Graflike one hander like feli Lopez or Mahut is of course going to kill you on clay. Federer is closer to the latter than the former camp. His backhand is okay, but certainly not a weapon. It only does him good if he takes it early to hit a winner by surprise and he cannot do that on clay.

Having a powerful one-hander is an advantage on any surface. You win the time battle. As you say, it's a question of how powerful it is.

 

[Denis]

Having a powerful one-hander is an advantage on any surface. You win the time battle. As you say, it's a question of how powerful it is.

You did not read my post properly.

 

[Moxie]

You did not read my post properly.

Sorry, I wasn't actually disagreeing with you. Tell me what I got wrong.

 

[DarthFed]

Stan's success on slower courts isn't just about having a very good and powerful one hander. Stan needs a lot of time to line up his shots and that more than anything explains why the vast majority of his success has come on clay and slow hard courts.

Guga is very tall so the high ball never really bothered him but yes he was obviously an excellent clay courter and probably the best there's been on that surface for players with 1HBH. Again, I am only speaking "on average". You look at the best there's been on clay and most of them have 2HBH. If you look at the best on grass most have had 1HBH. On the hard courts it is more split.

 

[Denis]

Stan's success on slower courts isn't just about having a very good and powerful one hander. Stan needs a lot of time to line up his shots and that more than anything explains why the vast majority of his success has come on clay and slow hard courts.

Guga is very tall so the high ball never really bothered him but yes he was obviously an excellent clay courter and probably the best there's been on that surface for players with 1HBH. Again, I am only speaking "on average". You look at the best there's been on clay and most of them have 2HBH. If you look at the best on grass most have had 1HBH. On the hard courts it is more split.

Finally got around to responding to this. The first two sentences are exactly my point. Kind of rediculous you are arguing against me.

A powerful one-hander enables you to hit through the court more than a two-hander. An advantage on clay. You also need more time to line up your shots, cause it takes a huge swing. On clay, you can do this. On grass or fast hards you don't get enough time for this. Hence, having a powerful single-hander is an advantage, cause the disadvantage is taken away allowing you to take it to its potential.

Im talking about the Wawrinka, Guga, Muster type of backhand, players like Thiem, Almagro, Cuevas, Mayer also have.

There are generally not that many players that play with a single hander anyways, but you will find more of them having success on clay than anywhere else.

You guys just need to take your Fed-goggles off and realise his backhand is simply not that good.

 

[DarthFed]

Finally got around to responding to this. The first two sentences are exactly my point. Kind of rediculous you are arguing against me.

A powerful one-hander enables you to hit through the court more than a two-hander. An advantage on clay. You also need more time to line up your shots, cause it takes a huge swing. On clay, you can do this. On grass or fast hards you don't get enough time for this. Hence, having a powerful single-hander is an advantage, cause the disadvantage is taken away allowing you to take it to its potential.

Im talking about the Wawrinka, Guga, Muster type of backhand, players like Thiem, Almagro, Cuevas, Mayer also have.

There are generally not that many players that play with a single hander anyways, but you will find more of them having success on clay than anywhere else.

You guys just need to take your Fed-goggles off and realise his backhand is simply not that good.

Federer's backhand has pretty much always been great off clay, especially on fast, low bouncing surfaces. His backhand definitely suffers a lot on clay due in large part to the higher bounce. This is the norm with players with 1HBH. Again look at the list of RG winners vs. the other slams and the stats don't lie. Also note that there used to be a lot more players with 1HBH's before this era. Even up through the 70's the vast majority of players had 1HBH. Through the 90's id imagine it was close to 50-50 for those with 1HBH's vs. 2HBH's but that's a guess. Saying that players with 1HBH's succeed on clay more than other surfaces is laughable, just blatantly wrong. Look at the true great players in history who had 1HBH's. Almost all of them had clay as their worst surface. Aside from Lendl I can't think of any others with 1HBH's that preferred clay.

Let's not pretend that guys like Almagro, Cuevas, and Thiem (to date) are great clay court players. I wouldn't even call them good clay court players until they show anything at MS events or RG. They have won their fair share of Micky mouse tourneys but are nowhere to be found in big events on clay.

Stan and Guga are true recent outliers as they succeeded on clay in large part due to their 1HBH and in Guga's case there were other parts of his game that helped him flourish on clay vs. the other surfaces. Muster's success on the surface was mostly due to his heavy topspin and movement.

And with Stan the amount of time he needs is not normal. He takes incredibly huge cuts from both wings and even on the return of serve which means pretty much his entire game flows better on clay and slow courts in general. Many players can generate a lot of power without needing a lot of time (think Federer's forehand and Djokovic from both wings) so it is incorrect to automatically say "powerful shots need big swings" Stan needs more time to hit his backhand than anyone I can think of needs to hit their big shots.