How tennis court surfaces affect player performance and betting odds

Tennis is a sport of nuance where every tiny factor can make a massive impact. Given that one of the biggest variables in tennis is the surface, this naturally has a big influence on the game. Below, we take a closer look at how tennis court surfaces affect player performance but also the tennis betting odds, which are directly tied to both of these.

Tennis surfaces and betting

There are three main surfaces that tennis is played on: hard, clay and grass.

Hard courts are the most common, and are the surface which the majority of tennis matches are played on. Clay courts are the next most frequently used, and are often found in places like South America and Europe. Grass is far less common, with just a handful of top level tournaments being held on it each year around Wimbledon.

The way that surface impacts betting is significant. That’s because each surface bounces differently – whether that’s slow and high on clay, or fast and low on grass – and depending on the strengths and weaknesses of a player’s game, this has a big impact on their success.

Impact of surface on player performance

To translate this theory into real-life data, here’s a look at how the performance of some of the top tennis players in the world varies across different surfaces.

Carlos Alcaraz

Alcaraz is one of the best players in the world right now. He’s good across the board, however, certain surfaces favor the Spaniard more.

Below are his win rates across all levels on different surfaces:

	Hard	Clay	Grass
Matches	176	171	27
Win percentage	77.27%	80.12%	88.89%

Alcaraz’s win percentage broken down by surface shows two things

He’s a brilliant player overall
His game favors clay over hard court

Yes, the 21-year-old has a strong record on both hard and clay courts, but a difference of almost three percent is significant at this level. Alcaraz grew up playing on clay, and his ability to generate his own power is lethal when he has time to run around and set up for shots on the slower surface.

alcaraz clay — Alcaraz with a 80.12% win rate on clay courts

As for his strong win rate on grass, the faster surface clearly suits him too. Note, there’s a relatively small sample size here given Alcaraz’s age and the limited grass events in the tennis calendar.

Boiling down this data, we can see that it has a clear impact on betting odds at the tennis sportsbooks for the upcoming majors. Here’s what Alcaraz is paying at each of the next three Grand Slams, which just happen to be on clay, grass and hard courts.

	US Open (hard)	French Open (clay)	Wimbledon (Grass)
Odds	3.00 (+200)	2.00 (+100)	2.20 (+120)

There’s a clear correlation here between Alcaraz’s win rate on each surface, and what tennis bookmakers have priced him at heading into the different majors.

This trend holds up for other top-ranked players as well, as we see below.

Jannik Sinner

Below are Sinner’s win rates across all levels on different surfaces:

	Hard	Clay	Grass
Matches	300	116	34
Win percentage	78.33%	68.19%	67.65%

Notice a more than 10% difference in Sinner’s win rate between hard courts and clay or grass. It’s clear that the Italian’s game is much more set up for hard courts, where he can hit through the court and dominate with his power, without being rushed by the slicker bounce of the grass or slowed up by the clay.

Novak Djokovic

Below are Djokovic’s win rates across all levels on different surfaces:

	Hard	Clay	Grass
Matches	865	405	143
Win percentage	84.05%	80.74%	86.01%

Djokovic is by far the most complete player in the history of tennis. Even so, the 24-time Grand Slam champion has his biases – grass is his best surface, followed by hard and then clay. The Serbian’s movement on grass is second-to-none, while his aggressive baseline approach works best on hard courts – though it isn’t awful on clay either!

Again, we can see this reflected in his betting odds for the upcoming majors.

	US Open (hard)	French Open (clay)	Wimbledon (Grass)
Odds	5.00 (+400)	6.50 (+550)	5.00 (+400)

Djokovic’s age – he turns 38 this month – adds a little nuance to his odds, but the broad strokes of his win rate can be seen reflected in how he’s priced across betting sites still. Can he challenge Sinner and Alcaraz for the Slams this season?

Historical examples of surface preference

While betting on tennis is a relatively new phenomenon, players preferring different surfaces is certainly not.

So take somebody like Rafael Nadal for example. The king of clay. He’s not called that for no reason. He’s called that because he is by far the best player on clay we have ever seen.

From his movement to his unique forehand, everything works spectacularly well on clay, so much so that no other player comes close and there were some great ones. So essentially he was hugely favored anytime he played on clay. It didn’t matter if he played Djokovic or Roger Federer; he was massively favored to win it.

Similar things happened with others, though in the case of Nadal and clay, it was an outlier of sorts. Nobody ever dominated a surface as strongly as he did. Federer came close with grass but not to that extent. In any case, that’s kind of how surfaces relate to betting.

It mostly comes down to how good a player is on a surface or isn’t on a surface. Federico Delbonis is very famous for having an abysmal record away from clay. In fact, he has a 0-13 career record on grass as he never won a single match on the surface. No wonder it’s about as opposite as clay as it can get and there are no grass courts in Argentina where he grew up.

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