As I've Said All Along...

Clay lays the foundation for success on every other surface. Pat Cash and I don't normally agree on anything but on this I'm with him.

You can love or hate the surface but it demands peak physical and mental conditioning. It requires patience. Because it requires patience a player is forced to learn how to construct a point. A player has to learn when to press and when to just keep the ball in play. Your movement on the surface has to be refined down to a science. When to slide. When to run. When to come in and when not to. All of this is taught playing on clay.

In my opinion the strategies that are being publicized by the ATP and the WTA are attempts not to embrace clay court play but to marginalize it. In the long run this is myopic and will set tennis back. Maybe because it's Pat Cash saying this someone will pay attention and the lines drawn in the sand will be wiped away. Time will tell.

LOOK BACK over the male champions at the past 13 Grand Slams and ask yourself what is the common denominator. I’ll stick my neck out and say with absolute certainty that you can add the winner of next week’s men’s final. What have they all got in common? Every single one of them learnt the game on clay courts.

How many times in the past week at the French Open have we heard beaten players bemoaning the fact that, try as they might, they just cannot come to terms with playing the game on crushed brick? How many truly great champions of the past have retired unfulfilled because they never got their hands on the Coupe des Mousquetaires? So what conclusions can be drawn from such laments? For starters, wouldn’t it make sense for those countries with cash-rich tennis federations – and I’m pointing my finger at Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association and the United States Tennis Association – to make sure their promising young players formulate their game on clay?

One undeniable fact over the foreseeable tennis future is that no quality will be more important in the shaping of champions than durability and fitness. And, without doubt, the most important shot will not be the crisp volley or the crashing serve; it will be the perfectly grooved groundstroke, on both forehand and back. There is no surface that comes close to clay for developing those skills.

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