Is grass closer to carpet than it is to hard or clay? And what's the biggest reason young players can't adjust?

[Spin Diesel]

I didn't watch tennis back when they used to play on carpet but apart from playing quite a few times on bad carpet, another few times I played on a great one, which was super low bounce and much faster than all indoor hard courts I know. Then one guy who has played on grass before said it's quite comparable. But I guess only considering bounce height and court speed, right? Not so much bounce consistency, as well as that your movement on grass still needs to be much more uniquely adjusted, right?

Does anybody of you play regularly on grass and carpet and can compare it to hard and clay as well?

Were those pro players, who played great on carpet, good on grass as well?

And the main thing why I'm asking all of this - why do those young players have such a hard time playing well on the surface? (obviously apart from the apparent and 100% totally true fact, that they all are useless clowns, who should be ashamed of their existence..) I guess it's mostly due to the different way you need to move, right? Or do the different kinds of bounces play a bigger role and that you maybe should adjust your own strokes to hit a little flatter as well?

 

[Mustard]

With grass, you should play more aggressively and instinctively. Grass will reward such an approach, while tending to punish hesitation and caution.

Clay, on the other hand, will reward patient point construction and endurance most of all, and will tend to punish (over the long haul) an approach that looks to end points early.

 

[Jonesy]

It is closer to wood.

 

[Mustard]

I didn't watch tennis back when they used to play on carpet but apart from playing quite a few times on bad carpet, another few times I played on a great one, which was super low bounce and much faster than all indoor hard courts I know. Then one guy who has played on grass before said it's quite comparable. But I guess only considering bounce height and court speed, right? Not so much bounce consistency, as well as that your movement on grass still needs to be much more uniquely adjusted, right?

Does anybody of you play regularly on grass and carpet and can compare it to hard and clay as well?

Carpet had a truer bounce compared to grass, but rewarded aggression.

 

[Kralingen]

The movement aspect on grass is actually the hardest imo. The slick, low, and sometimes unpredictable bounces of the ball are obviously tough. But for me the real flaw of the young talent is no one knows how to sort their feet out on grass. Dimitrov came close in 2014, but aside from that I haven’t seen anything close to Djokovic or Murray level movement on grass since. And obviously Federer’s movement will never be matched on grass.

 

[ChrisRF]

Carpet can be extremely different. Carpet for pro players in the 90s was usually fast. But I have played on carpet in around 5 different venues, and only one was decently fast. The others played close to clay honestly. Deep like a new carpet in a living room and therefore also very difficult to run fast on.

 

[Benf15harp]

I like a thick carpet

 

[Spin Diesel]

Carpet can be extremely different. Carpet for pro players in the 90s was usually fast. But I have played on carpet in around 5 different venues, and only one was decently fast. The others played close to clay honestly. Deep like a new carpet in a living room and therefore also very difficult to run fast on.

Yeah, I know those slow carpet courts. Though I assume the ones the pros played on were closer to that fast one I know.
I guess movement-wise a big difference is that you can accelerate fast on carpet but not so much on grass.