I've come to the conclusion that what is more relevant than the speed of the various surfaces which gets discussed quite a lot here,is the height of the ball bounce
I made this observation after watching Nadal at Miami.
I think when people think of a 'clay courter' they think of people who excel on a slower surface....I think they excel more because of the higher bounce...In the case of nadal at Miami, he benefited from the faster hard court because he was more able to hit more penetrating shots and outright winners on the faster surface, but yet the surface at Miami was higher bouncing for a hard court..perfect for an extreme Western gripper. I realize that Nadal has likely been working on flattening it out a bit more at times , but i do think he was aided by the higher bounding hardcourt at Miami
Contrast this to Fed who can be victimized on higher bounding courts because of his one hander and his seemingly milder grips than Nadal. Extreme Westerners love a higher bounding ball.
The conditions at Miami were also quite windy and I think Fed has more trouble in windy conditions partly because of his smaller racquetheadsize and the fact that his frame has a very clublike thicker beam on the flat axis. I think if the conditions at the French are windy this year, look for Fed to go out early.
This is also the reason why you have baseline bashers doing well at Wimbledon and less all court play...they can far more easily get under the ball to hit their 'normal' groundstrokes and dont have to deal with low bounding skidding balls like Wimbldeon used to be and hardcourts used to be...extreme grippers dont like low bounding balls. This, i feel, is also the reason why the USOpen seems to be the only major now where all courters have a more decent shot at winning..the Open courts are usually set up faster and lower bounding....suits more of the American players
So anywho..i really think it's more about the height of the bounce rather than the speed of the surface.
I made this observation after watching Nadal at Miami.
I think when people think of a 'clay courter' they think of people who excel on a slower surface....I think they excel more because of the higher bounce...In the case of nadal at Miami, he benefited from the faster hard court because he was more able to hit more penetrating shots and outright winners on the faster surface, but yet the surface at Miami was higher bouncing for a hard court..perfect for an extreme Western gripper. I realize that Nadal has likely been working on flattening it out a bit more at times , but i do think he was aided by the higher bounding hardcourt at Miami
Contrast this to Fed who can be victimized on higher bounding courts because of his one hander and his seemingly milder grips than Nadal. Extreme Westerners love a higher bounding ball.
The conditions at Miami were also quite windy and I think Fed has more trouble in windy conditions partly because of his smaller racquetheadsize and the fact that his frame has a very clublike thicker beam on the flat axis. I think if the conditions at the French are windy this year, look for Fed to go out early.
This is also the reason why you have baseline bashers doing well at Wimbledon and less all court play...they can far more easily get under the ball to hit their 'normal' groundstrokes and dont have to deal with low bounding skidding balls like Wimbldeon used to be and hardcourts used to be...extreme grippers dont like low bounding balls. This, i feel, is also the reason why the USOpen seems to be the only major now where all courters have a more decent shot at winning..the Open courts are usually set up faster and lower bounding....suits more of the American players
So anywho..i really think it's more about the height of the bounce rather than the speed of the surface.