Eyes Wide Open: How Surface Impacts Serving Patterns
Eyes Wide Open: How Surface Impacts Serving Patterns
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)
|
Ranking |
Player |
Hard Court |
Clay Court |
Majority |
Hard v Clay Gap |
|
1 |
R. Nadal |
28.2% |
26.6% |
Hard |
1.6% |
|
2 |
R. Federer |
49.1% |
45.7% |
Hard |
3.4% |
|
3 |
N. Djokovic |
49.9% |
48.5% |
Hard |
1.4% |
|
4 |
J. M. del Potro |
38.8% |
33.3% |
Hard |
5.5% |
|
5 |
A. Zverev |
45.8% |
46.8% |
Clay |
-1.0% |
|
6 |
M. Cilic |
51.8% |
56.1% |
Clay |
-4.3% |
|
7 |
D. Thiem |
46.8% |
46.4% |
Hard |
0.4% |
|
8 |
G. Dimitrov |
49.4% |
44.8% |
Hard |
4.6% |
|
9 |
K. Anderson |
47.9% |
48.4% |
Clay |
-0.5% |
|
10 |
J. Isner |
49.1% |
48.5% |
Hard |
0.6% |
|
|
Average |
45.7% |
44.5% |
Hard 7 / Clay 3 |
1.2% points |
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)
|
# |
Player |
Hard Court |
Clay Court |
Majority |
Hard v Clay Gap |
|
1 |
R. Nadal |
45.0% |
52.2% |
Clay |
-7.2% |
|
2 |
R. Federer |
49.8% |
56.7% |
Clay |
-6.9% |
|
3 |
N. Djokovic |
46.9% |
50.3% |
Clay |
-3.4% |
|
4 |
J. M. del Potro |
39.2% |
47.4% |
Clay |
-8.2% |
|
5 |
A. Zverev |
35.5% |
40.6% |
Clay |
-5.1% |
|
6 |
M. Cilic |
42.1% |
39.9% |
Hard |
2.2% |
|
7 |
D. Thiem |
53.6% |
55.4% |
Clay |
-1.8% |
|
8 |
G. Dimitrov |
44.7% |
47.7% |
Clay |
-3.0% |
|
9 |
K. Anderson |
41.0% |
38.7% |
Hard |
2.3% |
|
10 |
J. Isner |
46.6% |
47.7% |
Clay |
-1.1% |
|
-% |
Average |
44.4% |
47.7% |
8 Clay / 2 Hard |
3.3% points |
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.