What do you guys do differently for clay matches as opposed to other surfaces? Do you look for players with heavier spin on their balls? Where they're from? etc
The guys with more top spin on their shots will do better on clay then other surfaces in general. But not always, necceseraly. If the weather is too cold and maybe there is some rain, top spin will not have as much positive effect as in warm weather. Doesn't explode of the surface as much and is much more controlable for the opponent on the other side.
Are there any places/sites that have spin type of stats? I see on tv they have rpm when someone hits winners but havent come across anything online. Hard to tell watching who has more spin than others from the tv/streams
Not that I know of. But even if there would be, capping tennis is just not that easy. Back top spin guys on clay blindly and expecting to come out on top vs the book.
It' much more complex then that. You gotta be aware of the playing conditions, form, playing style of the opponents (strenghts, weaknesses) and how they match up against each other. Getting a good idea in which direction the match will be going and how the players might react to that and/or adjust.
For sure but that extra info is never a bad thing when capping, I look for travel spots for players between tourneys, defending pts, form, past matchups, just wondering what 'angles' could be effective on clay and not so much on other surfaces. I feel like its a mistake capping clay matches the same as hard courts, same goes for grass
if you want to quantify it, i'd say A) size of the player (bigger = not good on clay), B) nationality (very imprecise and many players from same country...... basically north american usually means attacking. spanish and south american = clay courters), C) service games won % differential (isner = never broken, but never breaks. a lesser rafa type = broken more and breaks more.. probably a better indicator than B)....
like someone else noticed, this is all highly discounted by market i'd think........ differential between grass and clay nowhere near as great as it was in past.
i'd add "length of rallies" to a quantitative list/screen that you might be able to develop......... clay = fast, small, fit players who play long points. power tennis (raonic, berdych, isner) = much shorter rallies.
I look at the split stats, speed of the court, who has points to defend, what up coming tournaments there are. Most will give 100% effort on Masters, and Slams.