I used to buy into the chestnut about clay being the most physically demanding surface myself, but not anymore. Or at least I no longer buy that the FO is the most grueling of the 4 majors. Yes, as the least serve-friendly surface/major clay/RG demands more baseline rallies, but it's also the least stressful on the lower part of your body which should facilitate longevity and possibly offset the aforementioned stress from all that extra running. And as the slowest surface/Slam it also gives relatively lumbering giants like Gomez, A. Medvedev, Norman, Verkerk and Soderling more time to set up for shots, a luxury missing from the other three Slams.
So what's the correct choice? I say it's the USO, and yes I'm for real. The proof, to paraphrase another chestnut, is already in the pudding: we've got Rafa/Evert as the King/Queen of RG, Novak/Court at the AO, Fed/Pete/Navratilova at Wimbledon and... who at the USO? Guess you could go all the way back to Tilden, but no one among the more recent guys/gals stands out, at least not to the same extent as at the other majors. But how come? DecoTurf, supposedly faster than Rebound Ace/Plexicushion, should be more conducive to attacking tennis which in turn should have led to more consistent dominance, but that's not what we actually have so far. Then maybe it's the higher bounce? Not when you peruse the resumes of such dirtballers as Muster, Moya, Costa, Berasategui, etc. Then what?
The answer, I think, is none other than the USO's physical demands, more precisely its late schedule which places it smack at the end of the long outdoor HC season. By then there's enough wear and tear across the board to make flashes in the pan less likely, while momentum players like Rafa and Guga tend to succeed more than you might expect from their surface-specific records. That I say more than anything is why it's been historically so hard to dominate the USO as much as the other three majors, and also what makes, respectively and arguably, Jimbo's insane consistency, Pistol's record # of finals and Fed's 5-peat at the event their single (mid-term) greatest achievement.
So it's not quite as simple as HC > clay or even the USO > the rest in terms of physical demands, but then reality never is. And that concludes yet another NonP (mini-)dissertation.
