Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 02 April 2009 /

Matthew Walton heralds the opening of the clay court season with a close analysis of who thrives and who fails on the red stuff.

It'll be interesting to see how the markets on Betfair deal with Andy Murray when it comes to the clay court season.

Murray, now a fixture in the top four of the world rankings, is regularly traded at odds of less than [4.0] in the outright markets for run-of-the-mill tour events - even for the Masters Series - and you'd struggle to see his price much bigger for a Grand Slam. For example, he started the Australian Open at little better than [5.0].

However, if you study the Scot's record on the main ATP Tour you'd find that from his 175 career wins prior to the recent Miami tournament, Murray had won just 11 clay court matches. That means only 6% of his total wins have come on dirt. None of his 10 titles have been on clay. In fact, he's never even made a final on the surface.

Will you find that his odds on Betfair reflect this fact when we hit Monte Carlo, Rome and Madrid in the next few weeks en route to the French Open? Probably not.

And what this highlights is the question as to who else falls into this category. Players who command much shorter odds than their record on the surface actually merits.

After all, two thirds of the ATP's events are played on fast surfaces (hard, grass and carpet) and players can rise to a very high world ranking by virtue of a prowess on any one, or two, of them - but not necessarily on clay. And so it's only when we arrive at places like Casablanca and Houston that we'll discover which players can include clay in their repertoire of talents.

Rafael Nadal, quite obviously, is a multiple winner on both clay and hard courts. Several other leading players are too - like Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Roddick and David Nalbandian - in that they've also shown winning ability on both fast and slow courts.

Now you could say their odds are more realistic as they've at least shown an aptitude for clay ... but has Andy Murray?

We know about his early career, playing in tennis academies in Spain, and that he missed most of the 2007 season with a wrist injury. But even allowing for that, he's still to achieve any sort of success on clay. Just those 11 career wins, in fact.

The same goes for a few other players as well. Three prime examples are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Marin Cilic and James Blake.

In the case of Blake, the cat is well and truly out of the bag. The 29-year-old American has won 300 matches in his career but only 39 of these have come on clay (13%). None of his 10 career wins have come on the surface either.

More interesting examples are players like Tsonga and Cilic. Both these guys are regulars near the top of the Betfair prices and in events missing the top players they would be natural choices for No.1 seedings and market favouritism. However, Tsonga has won just 4 of 72 career matches on clay, a measly 5%, and although he has a similar profile to Murray (i.e. he missed last year's European clay court season through injury) it's open to conjecture just how good he will be on the surface. For the record, the Frenchman didn't play a single Challenger Tour match on clay.

Will he, like Murray, be priced near the top of the market? More than likely.

The same could be said about Marin Cilic as the Croat is another with a particularly moderate clay court record - 11 clay wins from 73 overall victories, just 15% - and he too must prove himself before any serious support could be considered.

The flipside, naturally, are the players who make clay the focal point of their game. It's this time of year, and the earlier South American swing, where they record the bulk of their wins and gain the majority of their prize-money and ranking points. Hence, pegged for special Betfair 'attention'.

Nadal, for example, has recorded 44% of his career wins on clay (159 clay wins from 356 career wins). Compare this to Federer 19% (123-630), Djokovic 26% (53-202), Roddick 13% (67-482), Del Potro 21% (21-99).

And look at the tournaments they have won on clay. In the case of Nadal it's 22 on clay from 33 overall (66%), Federer is 7-57 (12%), Djokovic 3-12 (25%), Roddick 5-27 (18%) and Del Potro 2-5 (40%).

The players to pay particular attention to are those, like the world No.1, who have a mark in excess of 40%. These guys (a) target the clay court events (b) generally hit that target more often than not.

Take Nikolay Davydenko at 43% clay victories (138-320). The Russian has won seven of his 14 career titles on clay. Fernando Verdasco 40% (81-199) with both his career wins coming on clay. David Ferrer is up at 50% (133-263) with four of his seven titles being won on clay, Tommy Robredo stands at 49% (173-351) with eight from nine titles on the red stuff and Fernando Gonzalez is 44% (141-319) winning eight times on dirt from a career haul of 11.

However, if you want a player who is a clay-courter, full-stop, look no further than Nicolas Almagro. Of his 122 career wins no less than 100 have come on clay, a whopping 81%, and all five of his tournament wins have come on the surface. The Spaniard is barely a top 20 performer in the overall rankings but probably has top ten potential if the game were played solely on clay.

For the next two months the ATP Tour will concentrate on the clay courts of Europe. Bearing this in mind, it's important that we go into this period fully aware of the respective claims of the game's leading players. Upon closer inspection you will find examples, like Murray and Almagro, where guys have a particular strength or potential weakness on the surface which may well create false prices on Betfair.

And when you spot these ... you know what to do!

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