The subtleties of hard-court versus clay-court strategies are tough to pick up on with the naked eye. But not with a spreadsheet.

The way the ball interacts with the court is different for clay and hard, as well as how a player’s feet slide or stick to the surface. But what about serve patterns? Do players serve wide more on one side of the court than the other?

An Infosys Insights deep dive into the current Top 10 hitting first serves out wide in both the Deuce court and Ad court on clay and hard uncovers a clear strategic bias born from how the ball rebounds from each surface.

The data set comes from 2011-2018 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events and the Nitto ATP Finals. The statistical comparison is a percentage of serving either wide, body or T.

DEUCE COURT WIDE – HARD COURT WINS
The Top 10, on average, served wide more in the Deuce court when playing on hard over clay. Marin Cilic was the leader on hard, serving 51.8 per cent of his Deuce court first serves out wide.

What’s interesting is that Cilic was also the leader serving wide on clay. In second place on both hard and clay was Novak Djokovic.

As you may expect, the only lefty in the data set, World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, was last in the Top 10 in choosing to serve wide on clay and hard on the Deuce court as it goes against his natural slice serve down the middle T.

Current Top 10: First-Serve Percentage Deuce Court Wide on Clay & Hard (Bold = Leader)

Overall, seven of the Top 10 served wide on the Deuce court more on hard than clay. The Top 10 average was 45.7 per cent for hard and 44.5 per cent on clay – a difference of 1.2 percentage points.

AD COURT WIDE – CLAY COURT WINS
Roger Federer led the Top 10 in serving wide more on clay than down the T, directing 56.7 per cent of his first serves off the court to begin the point. Federer was followed by Dominic Thiem (55.4%) and Nadal (52.2%). Thiem was the hard court leader serving wide, doing it 53.6 per cent of the time.

Juan Martin del Potro had the biggest overall adjustment in serve location from hard to clay, with more sliders out wide in the Deuce court on hard, and more heavy first serves (power + kick) out wide in the Ad court on clay.

Del Potro Serve: Wide Serves
Deuce Court = 38.8% hard / 33.3% clay (5.5 percentage point difference)
Ad Court = 39.2% hard / 47.4% clay (8.2 percentage point difference)

Current Top 10: First-Serve Percentage Ad Court Wide on Clay & Hard. (Bold = Leader)

The average difference for the Top 10 was only 1.2 percentage points in the Deuce court between hard and clay, but that jumped up to a 3.3 percentage-point difference in the Ad court. Eight of the Top 10 served more out wide in the Ad court on clay than on hard.

The Deuce court wide serves by the right-handed players (nine of 10 in the data set) would be hit with both power and slice to drag the opponent off the court. The Ad court wide serves are different, as they are struck with more of a mix of power and kick, using the small granules of clay like sandpaper to gain maximum friction, and therefore jump, on the ball.

These small adjustments may escape our focus when we sit on the side of the court and watch a match, but make perfect strategic sense once we assign a percentage to them.

Andy Murray might be lacking match experience and still have an ATP Ranking south of 300. But the Scot has not forgotten how to beat Belgian David Goffin.

Murray, in the biggest win of his comeback so far, swept past the top seed and defending champion 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday at the Shenzhen Open. The former World No. 1 improved to 6-0 against Goffin, No. 11 in the ATP Rankings, and earned his first Top 15 victory since the 2017 Roland Garros, when he beat then-No. 9 Kei Nishikori.

“I felt like in terms of the way I hit the ball, it was the best I’ve played, and I think I knew that I was going to have to hit the ball very well if I wanted to win,” Murray said. “I love the conditions that we play in. Usually it’s quite humid, and the courts are a little bit faster than what we usually play on the tour. The conditions that I like are fast courts with slow balls, and with the humidity, that slows the ball down a little bit. I feel like I’m able to control the ball very well here.”

Murray, in his second quarter-final of 2018 (Washington), will face Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, who beat Taro Daniel of Japan 3-6, 6-2, 7-5. The Brit owns a 13-2 advantage in his FedEx ATP Head2Head series with Verdasco, but the Spanish left-hander beat Murray the last time they played, during the second round of the US Open.

Murray broke for a 4-1 lead in the opener against Goffin and served out the set to 30. In the second, the Scot was in the zone, breaking during his first three opportunities and leading 5-1.

But Goffin, who won two titles during the Asian swing last year (Shenzhen, Tokyo), fought back. He broke when Murray first attempted to serve out the match during the eighth game and had three more break opportunities in the 10^th game before Murray closed out the second-round contest.

“I know David’s been struggling a little bit with his serve, with his shoulder the last month, month and a half. So I was able to get a lot of returns back in play, put a lot of pressure on his service games. I served pretty well myself,” Murray said.

The 31-year-old Murray, No. 311 in the ATP Rankings, underwent hip surgery on 8 January and was playing only his 11^th match of the season (7-4). He has already announced that next week’s China Open in Beijing will be his final tournament of 2018.

Philipp Oswald recorded the 100th doubles match win of his career (100-108) alongside the experienced Max Mirnyi on Thursday at the Shenzhen Open. Oswald and Mirnyi, winners of two ATP World Tour titles from three finals this year, knocked out second seeds Marcus Daniell and Wesley Koolhof 6-4, 6-2 in 72 minutes for a place in the semi-finals.

“One hundred is a nice figure,” Oswald told ATPWorldTour.com. “I will try to improve that. I‘m just happy that after celebrating so many milestones with the ‘Beast’, I finally reached a little one myself.”

Mirnyi recorded the 750th match win of his career on 26 September 2017, won his 50th tour-level title on 22 October 2017 at the VTB Kremlin Cup with Oswald and advanced to his 100th final on 18 February 2018 at the inaugural New York Open.

When asked about playing with Mirnyi, Oswald admitted, “What I have learned from playing with Max is staying disciplined, staying positive and they‘re all beatable out there.

“What I know now, is that every match is an opportunity to get better. You either win or you learn and there‘s a long way to go for me!”

Oswald and Mirnyi lifted trophies in 2018 in New York (d. Koolhof/Sitak) and at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship (d. Begemann/Sancic). They also finished as runners up at the ASB Classic in Auckland (l. to Marach/Pavic).

In other quarter-final results in Shenzhen, top seeds Ben McLachlan and Joe Salisbury defeated Marcin Matkowski and Nicholas Monroe 6-4, 6-4. Fourth seeds Robert Lindstedt and Rajeev Ram beat wild cards Zhe Li and Di Wu 6-3, 6-3.

At the Chengdu Open, top seeds Ivan Dodig and Mate Pavic overcame Denys Molchanov and Igor Zelenay 3-6, 6-3, 10-4 in 73 minutes for a place in the semi-finals.

Australian Alex de Minaur stepped up his bid for a place at the Next Gen ATP Finals on Thursday after a second-round victory at the Shenzhen Open. The 19-year-old Australian recovered from a set and 2-4 down to beat American Mackenzie McDonald 1-6, 7-6(1), 6-0 in two hours and 40 minutes.

“I was watching winners go past me in the first set,” said De Minaur. “He was playing some incredible tennis. I’d experienced that level when I hit with him earlier this week. I knew I had to keep going and try to make the extra ball, then, at some stage, I hoped that his level and intensity would drop so I could turn it around.”

Get To Know: Watch De Minaur Video Archive

World No. 80 McDonald won the first five games and broke for a 3-2 advantage in the second set, prior to seventh seed De Minaur working his way back. The Australian needed four set point chances to clinch the second set and, despite the third set scoreline, he saved four break points in the decider to complete his 20th match win of the season (20-17 record).

De Minaur is in fourth position in the ATP Race To Milan for one of seven automatic qualification spots into the Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held from 6-10 November. He has reached two ATP World Tour finals this year, at the Sydney International (l. to Medvedev) and the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. (l. to A. Zverev).

Looking ahead to playing fourth seed Damir Dzumhur on Friday, De Minaur said, “It’s going to be a tough match tomorrow. There will be some extremely long rallies and I intend to put all my effort into the match.”

In Thursday’s first match, which lasted 87 minutes, Dzumhur swept past Indian qualifier Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-4, 6-2.

Do You Know?
Alex de Minaur began the 2018 ATP World Tour season at No. 208 in the ATP Rankings and has since achieved career-high ranking 16 times, peaking at No. 38 on 10 September.

Top seed Fabio Fognini opened his campaign at the Chengdu Open on Thursday by beating Belgian qualifier Ruben Bemelmans 6-4, 7-6(2) in one hour and 35 minutes. The Italian is a winner of three ATP World Tour titles this year — at the Brasil Open in Sao Paulo (d. Jarry), the SkiStar Swedish Open in Bastad (d. Gasquet) and the Abierto de Tenis Mifel presentado por Cinemex (d. Del Potro) — and has a 38-18 match record.

Fognini next faces Matthew Ebden, who is one win away from reaching his third ATP World Tour semi-final of the season (Libema Open, BB&T Atlanta Open) after the sixth-seeded Australian knocked out Matteo Berrettini of Italy 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(3) in just over two hours.

Elsewhere, American Taylor Fritz stepped up his bid for a place at the Next Gen ATP Finals in November by beating Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 7-5, 6-1 in 67 minutes. Currently in sixth position in the ATP Race To Milan, the 20-year-old is through to his fourth tour-level semi-final of the year (also the Delray Beach Open, Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship and the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Lyon).

Fritz will now play his compatriot, Sam Querrey, who struck 17 aces and didn’t lose a first-service point (30/30) in his 6-1, 6-4 win over third-seeded Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili in just 54 minutes.

Did You Know?
Fabio Fognini has won only one of his eight ATP World Tour titles on a hard court, at Los Cabos (d. Del Potro) in August 2018. He has also finished as runner-up in hard-court finals at the 2012 and 2017 St. Petersburg Open and at the 2016 VTB Kremlin Cup.