Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 15 August 2008 /

"Magical" Matthew Walton dispels the myth that players can only win tournaments on one or two surfaces by looking at who's won on what over the last couple of years.

One of the perennial misconceptions about tennis players is that 'Tom' is a clay-courter, 'Dick' is a hard court specialist or 'Harry' can only play on grass.

Players are all too often pigeon-holed into broad categories which label them as hard or clay, fast or slow, indoor or outdoor. Sweeping generalisations which are commonly misdirected, usually misleading and basically miss the point of tennis form study.

Modern day players, whether through playing styles, court speeds, racquet technology or the sheer necessity of ranking points, need to be proficient on more than one surface.

Rafael Nadal winning at the French Open and Wimbledon (a feat not done since the days of Bjorn Borg) is a ready example but further down the tennis food chain this phenomenon was equally well illustrated the other week by Juan Martin Del Potro. The tall Argentine taking back-to-back maiden titles on clay in Kitzbuhel and Stuttgart and then turning over Andy Roddick in the final of the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles on an outdoor hard court.

As such, Del Potro became the seventh player this year to win titles on two different surfaces with just one - guess who? - Rafael Nadal landing titles on three.

This explains why from 48 tournaments held this year we've only seen 27 different champions as players have recorded multiple tournament wins on more than one surface (we can also note multiple wins on one surface for Roddick and Llodra - twice on hard - Gonzalez and Almagro - twice on clay).

This year is just a snapshot of form over the past 8 months. The vast majority of top players will record career wins on two or probably three surfaces during their career - after all, that's why they're top players in the first place. Some, of course, will manage the feat on all four surfaces and these guys we should put down in our notebooks.

Richard Gasquet may have only won 5 career titles but he's already done the surface 'Grand Slam' with wins on hard, clay, carpet and grass. Andy Roddick has done it as well, much the same as Roger Federer.

But these guys are a rare breed. If you look down the top ten of the current rankings no other player has managed the feat. Rafa is yet to win on carpet, Djokovic has only won on hard and clay, Davydenko and Ferrer have done three of the four surfaces (needing grass and carpet respectively for the set), Murray has won on just carpet and hard courts, James Blake is hard courts all the way, Nalbandian just needs to win on grass and Stanislas Wawrinka has only won one title on hard!

In fact the next inductee into the Hall Of Fame will probably be Ivo Karlovic. Like Nadal this year, the mighty Croat won on three different surfaces in 2007 and now needs just a carpet win for the four-timer (and that surface is tailor-made for his game).

Even some of the best known names of the last few years will end their career without landing a full house. Players such as Lleyton Hewitt (3/4 - no carpet), Marat Safin (3/4 - no grass) and Ivan Ljubicic (3/4 - no clay) will end up falling short of the complete set.

However, allowing for these shortfalls of various players the general subject of the discussion - players being able to play and win on more than one surface - has clear repercussions for our own betting.

We should be mindful of the way in which we look at players and we should be extremely wary of putting them down as 'just a clay-courter' or 'he can only play on hard courts'. We must see players as more complex characters and, by so doing, study them in a more in-depth nature :-

1. Do not blindly label players as one type of performer or another.

2. Consider a player's surface preference by researching the percentage of matches he plays on each surface.

3. Then study the percentage of matches he wins on each surface.

4. Use specific head-to-head records as a yardstick by which to judge your player's ability on each surface.

5. Look for bets and markets where other Betfair users have clearly gone with the 'popular wisdom' about a player ... when you know better.

After all, we've seen two dyed-in-the-wool Spaniards (Nadal, twice, and Ferrer) win on clay this year. The first time this has happened in over 30 years. Del Potro wins on clay then hard in successive tournaments. And it's this sort of thing which should stop us all from stereotyping players.

Yes, you might say the pattern is for carpet, grass and hard courts to produce the majority of these dual-surface examples (as clay court events tend to won solely by what some might formerly have refered to as clay court specialists) but, then again, if Andy Roddick and Ivo Karlovic can win on clay, then surely anybody can!

All this should alert us to the fact that players are multi-dimensional, probably more so today than ever before. A good living can be earned by proficiency on one surface but if you want real success then there have to be more strings to your ... racquet.

Ultimately, few players are capable of winning titles on more than one surface but all are capable of winning matches on multiple court conditions. Do think outside of the blinkered view that a player is solely about one surface because that could lead to some very nice returns on the exchange, especially as we lead up to the US Open in a few days time.

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