With the clay court season kicking up into high gear, let’s examine some of the tactical and strategic adjustments that players will be making on the red dirt.

Baseline Play

Professional tennis, and tennis in general, has developed into a baseline-oriented game, much to the chagrin of traditionalists. The propensity of players to move forward toward the net has diminished significantly. This change is seen on clay more than any other surface. As string technology continues to develop and players generate more power and more spin, moving forward has become increasingly difficult. This applies to all surfaces. On clay, higher bounces make it harder to take balls on the rise and move forward. In addition, the speed of the surface, or lack thereof, gives baseline players more time to respond to net approaches.

Also, topspin groundstrokes are most effective and commonly used on this surface. Clay-court rallies are more extended because players are hitting with more topspin and margin, making it harder to extract errors. If you have a hard time conceptualizing the effectiveness of topspin on clay, just look at Rafael Nadal. Nadal’s topspin forehand has propelled him to becoming the greatest clay court player of all time. On grass and hard courts, more variety (underspin, sidespin) is seen and less margin (flatter balls) is used.

Sliding

Except for players like Novak Djokovic or Gael Monfils, the chances of successfully sliding on hard courts are slim to none. Luckily for those who don’t possess inhuman levels of athleticism and flexibility, sliding on clay is much easier. While those who didn’t grow up on clay will be at an inherent disadvantage in movement, it’s not impossible for them to learn the art of sliding.

The ability to know when and how to slide is crucial because it makes it much harder for offensive-minded players to put shots away. For someone like Tomas Berdych, hitting through a clay court is already much more of a challenge than hitting through a grass court or hard court. Berdych also knows his opponents will get to more balls on clay because they can integrate sliding into their defensive arsenal.

Kick Serves

A kick serve, also known as a topspin serve, is when a player adds topspin to the ball in order to allow the ball to kick (bounce high) off the surface. On clay, the kick serve is a wonderful tactic to use. This is because clay courts experience the most rebound of any surface, so balls will bounce higher. Kick serves thus add more height to the bounce on a surface that already yields high bounces.

If one player who has more of an advantage serving on clay than anyone else, it’s John Isner. In the Indian Wells semifinals, Isner hit several kick serves that Djokovic wasn’t even able to put a racket on. If Isner is able to hit kick serves on a hard court that the world’s best returner can’t even track down, he should be able to do even more on clay.

While John Isner may love what clay can do for his kick serve, players with one-handed backhands should be concerned about Isner and any other player who can hit potent kick serves. Someone like Stanislas Wawrinka, who possesses arguably the best one-handed backhand in the world, will be forced to step inside the baseline and take these kick serves on the rise. Otherwise, they would need to backtrack well behind the baseline to let the ball drop, putting them in extremely defensive positions.

Drop Shots

A beautifully hit drop shot is one of the most visually delightful events that can take place on a tennis court. Unfortunately, the vast majority of drop shots do not fit this description. Typically speaking, there are several situations when hitting a drop shot is justified. These situations are when the opponent is pinned well behind the baseline or off the court, when the opponent hits a drop shot, or as a surprise. Most of the time, especially on clay, drop shots are far from justified and are commonly used as bail-out shots.

The temptation to hit drop shots is much higher on clay than any other surface. The protracted, physically draining rallies ingrained in clay-court play lead many players to hit drop shots in an attempt to end points because they simply have no energy left to continue. On the other hand, balls hit with sidespin, underspin, and backspin tend to die on clay, making a well-hit drop shot almost always a point-ending shot.