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Mar/17

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Nadal On Balance of Hard/Clay Events

rafangkWith buzz about changing the ATP Rio and Buenos Aires events from clay to hard court surface to try to attract bigger name players into main draws, Rafael Nadal voiced a strong opinion yesterday at his Miami Open press conference.

“If we change Beijing and Shanghai to clay then we will have stronger tournaments in all the hard court tournaments too, stronger players,” said Nadal. “Is obvious that if every day is less clay tournaments, is obvious that there is less strong players on clay. If there is 80% of the tournaments on hard, is normal that the best players in the world are hard court specialists. So if we still putting more tournaments on hard, then no one top player will be a specialist on clay. These tournaments for sure will never have a top player because the top players are always on hard and they want to play on this surface.”

“That did not happen in the past when there were more tournaments in clay. And there was a lot of great star players on clay like Gaudio, Ferrero, Coria, Guga, Moya. The situation changed because ATP is pushing more and more the hard court tournaments. If that is what we want to do for our sport then its fine.”

Nadal made another point about Masters Cup. “Im playing Masters Cup every single year on hard. I dont understand that I qualified eleven or twelve years on Masters Cup. I had to play all the Masters Cup on hard when you qualified on grass, clay, hard and indoor. So its not fair in my opinion. If you put more tournaments on hard, you have less tournaments in clay. For me is not fair enough. At the same time (hard courts) for the body is worse.”

How about mixing up the Masters Cup surfaces each year via a special draw?

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6 comments

  • Jg · March 30, 2017 at 7:47 am

    Raffa’s right, too many hard court tournaments, it leads to one dimensional play and injury. We need some green clay ATP events in the US.

  • jg · March 30, 2017 at 9:56 am

    watch the highlights of Connors/Orantes at the US open final on green clay at Forest Hills, interesting contrasting styles.

  • Scoop malinowski · March 30, 2017 at 4:18 pm

    Agree jg. But hard court is the worlds predominant surface. Clay absolutely should be maximized by Atp, not minimized. Would live to see WTF alternate surfaces by random draw or even work a planned rotation

  • Bryan · April 1, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    ” If there is 80% of the tournaments on hard, is normal that the best players in the world are hard court specialists. So if we still putting more tournaments on hard, then no one top player will be a specialist on clay.”

    Rafa makes a valid point but fact is today hardcourts have replaced clay as the dominant surface. Nothing will change that. Asian swing adding clay would be ludicrous since US Open and all other big late-year events are hardcourt.

    Europe has a great clay tradition so the spring swing will always be clay but that’s it. 1Q events in LatAm are going to hardcourts because switching from hard to clay and back to hard for the US swing makes no sense at all.

  • Thomas Tung · April 1, 2017 at 10:28 pm

    I find myself agreeing w/Rafa here: the current state of the Tour is fine, as is, no need to change up the calendar to more hard court tournaments.

  • Andrew Miller · April 1, 2017 at 11:32 pm

    Agreed, no change. Just up pay for challengers, apparently pay hasn’t risen much in over 3 decades.

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