Tip Sheet: Best Practices for Transitioning Your Hard-Court Game to Clay
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Tip Sheet: Best Practices for Transitioning your Hard-Court Game to Clay Tennis strategy and skill is dependent on your court type. Grass, hard and clay are all very different and all require their own unique strategy. When transitioning to clay consider the following 5 points to make sure that you are on the top of your game. 1) The shoes. This year I bought myself some Adidas Feather Clay Court Shoes. They have special soles with tiny cleat like rubber knobs which grip the clay very nicely. You can slide but you don't have to slide. When you do it is because you want to not because you have to. This was the single best investment I ever made. I can even change directions now without losing my footing. Don't even think of bringing your hardcourt shoes. 2) To go forward you must take a few steps back. I have always played on the baseline and hit on the rise. I am not that tall (5'5") and found that hitting on the rise gave me the advantage of giving my opponent his or her pace back. Because my strokes are very compact and flat there isn't much margin for error and my game is well suited to a fast court. But on clay my frustration built up because I always felt insecure. I often times just bunted the ball back or even completely missed the ball because it hit an irregular spot on the court. I would say that my on the rise shots were 50% less effective on clay. A coach of mine made it clear to me that I needed to make more forward and back adjustments on clay. So I begrudgingly decided to step well behind the baseline (4 feet) and simply try and hit everything deeper and with more topspin. That is when the words "love" and "clay court" finally occurred in the same sentence. Guess what? It worked. I could suddenly hit my returns well. My shots would not go out. Most importantly, I could still retrieve so many balls. Balls that were winners on hard courts were easily reachable. Suddenly, I had become the wall that everyone dreads playing. 3) Pit Bull. I played with a tennis pro and asked him why I didn't win when I played. When he watched me play a few points he noted that I didn't attack enough. My shots were too conservative, often landing short. He told me to "attack like a pit bull." So I started hitting the ball harder and voila I begun to win more points. But flat shots can work well on hard courts. What do you do on clay courts? You put more topspin. The way to attack is by making the opponent stand further back. Topspin not only gives you much more margin it makes the ball bounce higher and that makes your opponents life difficult. So I had gone from trying to rip through the ball to ripping over the ball. It is such a simple strategy and it worked. I am curious to see if more topspin helps my flat hardcourt game. But for now I am happy to spin away. 4) Variety. We all love to hit winners through big serves, huge strokes and overhead volleys. Hey, I am a victim, too. I love hitting the clean winner past my opponent. The problem is that it is only one point and there are many ways to win a point with a less risky shot. I watched a junior match and guess what? They were mixing it all up. Drop shots, moonballs, big strokes, and slices. I saw every shot in the book from two 15 year olds. Granted, they are more effective on a clay court but I think that even on hard courts a well rounded game would help. Do you really need to hit the same fast shot to win? Of course, not. I am sure you have played the dink, lob junk baller who runs through the best players on your court. Clay allows you to learn more variety and this variety can then translate into a better game. There is one downside. Coming to the net on clay is much more difficult. So us hard courters to have the advantage of a more developed net game. So there you have it. You'll find a bunch of articles about how to play on clay. I have given you a few pointers but the real key is to learn to attack differently. Slowly, I have begun to feel the bliss of hitting an aggressive clay court shot. On this surface, you hurt your opponent by making them hit a nasty deep, spinny, ball one more time. I sound like a glorified pusher don't I. I love clay. .