Few debates get tennis fans as riled up as the general slowing–or homogenization–of surface speeds. While indoor tennis (to take a recent example) is a different animal than it was fifteen or twenty years ago, it’s tough to separate the effect of the court itself from the other changes in the game that have taken place in that time.
Further, the “court effect” itself is multi-dimensional. The surface makes a big difference, as grass will almost always play quicker than a hard court, which will usually play faster than clay. But as we’ve seen with the persistence of Sao Paulo as one of the fastest-playing events on tour, altitude is a major factor, as is weather, which can slow down a normally speedy tournament, as was the case with Hurricane Irene at the 2011 US Open. The choice of balls can influence the speed of play as well.
With all of these factors in play, what we often refer to as “surface speed” is really “court speed” or even “playing environment.” It’s not just the surface. That said, I’ll continue to use the terms interchangeably.
Because of there is only limited data available, if we want to quantify surface differences, we must use a proxy for court speed. What has worked in the past is ace rate–adjusted for the server and returner in each match. On a fast court–a surface that doesn’t grip the ball; or one like grass with a low, less predictable bounce; or at a high altitude; or in particularly hot weather–a player who normally hits 5% of his service points for aces might see that number increase to 8%. (Returners influence ace rate as well. A field with Andy Murray will allow fewer aces than a field with Juan Martin del Potro, so I’ve controlled for that as well.)
Aggregate these server- and returner-adjusted ace rates, and at the very least, we have an approximation of which courts on tour are most ace-friendly. Since most of the characteristics of an ace-friendly court overlap with what we consider to be a fast court, we can use that number as an marker for surface speed.
2013 Court Speed Numbers
For the second year in a row, the high-altitude clay of Sao Paulo was the fastest-playing surface on tour. The altitude also appears to play a role in making Gstaad quicker than the typical clay.
As for the slowing of indoor courts, the evidence is inconclusive. The O2 Arena, site of the World Tour Finals, rated as slower than average in 2011 and 2012, on a level with some of the slowest hard courts on tour. This year, it came out above average, and a three-year weighted average puts the O2 at the exact middle of the ATP court-speed range.
Valencia and the Paris Masters played about as fast as they have in the past, while Marseille remained near the top of the rankings. If there is evidence for a mass slowing of indoor speeds, it comes from some unlikely sources: Both Moscow and San Jose were among the quickest surfaces on tour in 2010 and 2011, but have been right in the middle of the pack for the last two years.
The table below shows the relative ace rate of every tournament for the last four years, along with a weighted averaged of the last three years. The weighted average is the most useful number here, especially for the smaller 28- and 32-player events. The limited extent of a 31-match tournament can amplify the anomalous performance of one player–as you can see from some of the bigger year-to-year movements. But over the course of three years, individual outliers have less impact.
The “Sf” column is each event’s surface: “C” for clay, “H” for hard, and “G” for grass. The numbers are multipliers, so Sao Paulo’s three-year weighted average of 1.58 means that players at that event hit 58% more aces than they would have on a neutral court. Monte Carlo’s 0.67 means 33% less than neutral.
Event Sf 10 A% 11 A% 12 A% 13 A% 3yr Sao Paulo C 1.44 1.08 1.58 1.74 1.58 Marseille H 1.09 1.24 1.41 1.26 1.30 Halle G 1.20 1.39 1.26 1.20 1.25 Wimbledon G 1.36 1.18 1.24 1.25 1.24 Shanghai H 0.96 1.05 1.08 1.37 1.22 Montpellier H 1.28 1.40 1.16 1.21 Brisbane H 1.01 1.20 1.08 1.27 1.19 Tokyo H 1.35 0.98 1.17 1.26 1.18 Gstaad C 0.87 1.13 0.90 1.35 1.16 Winston-Salem H 1.20 1.10 1.18 1.16 Chennai H 0.75 0.77 1.21 1.25 1.16 Valencia H 1.02 1.10 1.12 1.19 1.15 Zagreb H 1.09 1.16 1.20 1.11 1.15 Washington H 0.96 0.93 1.34 1.10 1.15 Vienna H 1.42 1.22 1.01 1.19 1.14 Santiago C 1.23 1.21 0.86 1.29 1.13 Sydney H 1.08 1.14 0.94 1.25 1.13 Atlanta H 0.92 0.82 1.06 1.26 1.12 Eastbourne G 1.07 1.13 0.92 1.22 1.11 Queen's Club G 1.07 1.13 1.09 1.12 1.11 Paris H 1.38 0.97 1.16 1.12 1.11 Cincinnati H 1.09 1.02 1.08 1.13 1.10 s-Hertogenbosch G 1.13 1.08 1.03 1.15 1.10 Auckland H 1.01 1.08 1.06 1.12 1.09 Memphis H 1.08 1.12 0.95 1.09 1.05 Stuttgart C 1.09 1.05 1.04 1.06 1.05 Bogota H 1.09 1.05 Rotterdam H 0.88 1.21 0.83 1.12 1.04 Stockholm H 0.93 0.96 1.15 0.99 1.04 Basel H 0.98 1.05 1.16 0.96 1.04 Bangkok H 1.20 1.12 0.73 1.19 1.03 Australian Open H 0.98 1.10 0.92 1.08 1.03 US Open H 1.14 0.93 1.06 1.04 1.03 San Jose H 1.21 1.23 0.96 0.99 1.02 Moscow H 1.28 1.12 1.01 0.99 1.02 Dubai H 1.13 1.07 1.14 0.92 1.02 Doha H 0.88 1.29 0.90 0.98 1.00 Tour Finals H 1.07 0.93 0.87 1.11 1.00 Beijing H 1.01 1.01 1.06 0.94 0.99 Canada H 0.99 1.02 1.04 0.95 0.99 Madrid C 0.76 0.86 1.19 0.89 0.98 Kitzbuhel C 1.12 0.70 1.12 0.98 Metz H 1.14 0.96 1.07 0.90 0.97 Dusseldorf C 0.92 0.96 Munich C 0.77 0.82 0.91 0.97 0.92 St. Petersburg H 1.02 0.84 0.86 0.99 0.92 Acapulco C 0.88 0.89 1.06 0.84 0.92 Delray Beach H 0.98 1.07 0.92 0.85 0.91 Newport G 1.46 0.72 1.04 0.89 0.91 Kuala Lumpur H 0.96 0.97 0.81 0.94 0.90 Miami H 0.91 0.98 0.86 0.89 0.89 Umag C 0.56 0.74 0.67 1.04 0.87 Hamburg C 1.04 0.85 0.75 0.92 0.85 Buenos Aires C 0.84 0.86 0.93 0.74 0.82 Indian Wells H 0.92 0.90 0.86 0.77 0.82 Roland Garros C 0.82 0.86 0.81 0.78 0.81 Barcelona C 0.73 0.65 0.91 0.78 0.80 Casablanca C 0.82 0.91 0.77 0.75 0.79 Estoril C 0.62 0.73 0.79 0.71 0.74 Houston C 0.85 0.71 0.71 0.77 0.74 Bucharest C 0.61 1.08 0.62 0.68 0.73 Rome C 0.78 0.67 0.64 0.81 0.73 Nice C 0.88 0.84 0.79 0.64 0.72 Bastad C 0.93 0.74 0.86 0.58 0.70 Monte Carlo C 0.63 0.60 0.71 0.67 0.67
This doesn’t take into account the balls being used.
It doesn’t specifically take into account *anything*. It is a reflection of how the court, plus the balls, plus the weather, plus the altitude, plus visibility, plus heaven knows what else, translates into the style of play at that tournament.
I tried to delete the comment, but I couldn’t 🙂
Montreal missing?
It’s listed as ‘Canada.’ I didn’t separate the Montreal and Toronto events, and looking at the numbers from the last four years, there doesn’t appear to be a huge difference between the two.
Really interesting.
That’s a substantial decrease in paris, from 38% (2010) above a neutral court to only 11% (3 year average) above a neutral court. That’s not trivial and would be one of the bigger changes either way over this time period, particularly amongst masters and grand slams, where the fields are more comparable from year to year.
Ofcourse if you did a 3 year moving average starting at 2010 the Paris change would look less stark. But if a change did happen after 2010 you wouldn’t want to combine the data in that way.
Sao Paulo is also the court that was reported as being “slippery” earlier this year, I wonder if that partly explains that result.
cheers,
bolo
Really Interesting to see the difference in “speed” during 2012 Madrid when they switched to blue clay. So much for the tournament calling it “identical” to the red stuff.
Good observation. According to the stats. Madrid in that year played more like wimbledon than barcelona.
Big servers entering a tournament and making it far has a much bigger impact on these stats than anything else. A blind person can see Queens Club is a lot faster than Valencia, for example.
I do think ace count might work as an indicator but you would have to compare Isner’s ace count in Indian Wells to his overall ace count during the season and then continue that method with 50-60 other players.
These numbers are adjusted for server quality (and returner quality), as noted in the post. I would have thought that “a blind person” could have seen that.
Hi, there. Love the post. Regarding the São Paulo ATP, please take into consideration that it was only played there in 2012 and 2013. Before that, it was played at sea level in Costa do Sauipe (which explains the 2011 numbers being so low). Also, the 2013 event was an anomaly (I’m not trying to take any credit from your work – just adding some interesting info to help explain some numbers) because of a combination of factors: 1) altitude + indoors; 2) the court was slippery and with a high number of irregular bounces; and 3) the balls were fast, and they were the type (Wilson Championship, the cheapest model made by Wilson) that gets faster as the game goes on.
Cheers!
HI Jeff,
Very nice article. And some good tidbits already pointed out by other people like the Madrid blue clay experiment. Also interesting to see the aussie and us opens right next to each other, and very close to the WTF as well.
I don’t know how much work it is to run your model but it would be interesting to see the numbers from say Wimbledon in the late 90’s early 00’s and see what the difference, if any, comes to.
Can I ask you a technical question, how did you define your server/returner ability variables?
Thanks!
I calculated each player’s average ace rate (and ace rate as a returner) for the season, and used those to generate an “expected” number of aces for each match. So if Isner would, in an average match, get 10 aces vs Federer, and at Wimbledon, he hit 12 aces vs Federer, that’s 20% above expected. Apply that algorithm to every match in the tournament, average the results, and that’s roughly how I arrive at these numbers.
WHere did you get these wonderful head to head ace count statistics? I would love to create some of my own for 2014.
Can you do the numbers for 2014 too?