What the mad Battle of the Surfaces taught us about tennis

Just over 18 years ago, in May 2007, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer engaged in one of the most bizarre tennis matches in the history of the game. In front of an intrigued crowd of some 7,000 packing the temporary stands installed in the tennis club in Palma Majorca, they played out three sets on a court that was grass on one side of the net, clay on the other. The idea of this grandly titled Battle of the Surfaces was to highlight the different approaches required to master the two types of court, to see who could adapt quickest to the altered rhythms and requirements each demands.
And they are different. Very different. Clay courts are made of crushed brick particles, and the surface creates substantial friction that slows the ball down as it hits the surface. Whereas on grass the ball skids and slips, retaining much of its pace.
A serve hit at 100mph would strike grass and rise off at 92mph; on clay it would slow to 78mph, a difference of 20%. The angle of bounce is also substantially different. On grass, a ball hitting the surface at 16 degrees will not deviate, it goes up and away still at 16 degrees. On clay, it bounces much higher, up to 20 degrees. Which means players need to stand further back in order to adequately return the ball. On clay, moreover, a player can use the surface to slide into a shot. On grass, attempting such a manoeuvre would merely result in slipping over. In short, clay favours the baseline game, grass the serve and volley.
It means players have to adapt. But generally, between the end of the clay season with the French Open in May and the climax of the grass season at Wimbledon in late June, players have a bit of time to do so. Not in The Battle of the Surfaces. Federer, the serial Wimbledon champion – at the time unbeaten in 48 matches on grass – had just two games to alter his grip, stand further back and bring more spin to his game. Nadal, the King of Paris, unbeaten in 72 matches on the red stuff, was suddenly obliged, when playing on the grass half, to charge at the net, to volley where he might have rallied. And that is without mentioning the sudden strain on their bodies.
'We call it 'Grass Arse',' says Emily Webley-Smith, the British doubles player who has spent the past 20-odd years on the women's circuit. 'For the first couple of days after switching from clay to grass you get such tight glutes from forcing yourself to stay low because of the difference in bounce.'
Indeed, as she moves from clay to grass at this time of year, Webley-Smith's entire training programme changes in preparation for the new conditions.
'It's better to concentrate on what we call 'serve plus one' rather than rallying for 15 shots, simply because the rallies are so much shorter on grass,' she says. 'Your speed drills are shorter and more explosive – five to eight seconds instead of 10-15 seconds. There is lots of focus on first-step speed. It's a mental workout, too. You play at least a metre further back from the baseline on clay. So you have to keep telling yourself to get forward on grass.'
In 2007, Federer and Nadal were doing this every time they switched ends. As supreme practitioners, they were better equipped than most to modify their game. But even the best find it a challenge. Last year Carlos Alcaraz became only the sixth man to have won both the French Open and Wimbledon in the same season: before Alcaraz, Björn Borg did it three times, Nadal twice, Rod Laver, Federer and Novak Djokovic once each.
Great champions such as Pete Sampras, despite lifting the Wimbledon title seven times, only once got so far as the semi-finals at Roland Garros. Andy Murray fared a touch better, once reaching the French Open final. And it is not much more frequent an occurrence in the women's game. Steffi Graf did the double four times, Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova twice, Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Billie Jean King and Chris Evert once each.
'It's crazily hard,' says Webley-Smith of the switch. 'Especially as for the majority of the season, you're playing on a different surface again: hard courts.'
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Modern players try all sorts of ways to speed up the process. The American Peyton Stearns posted a video of herself in June practising for the grass season on what appeared to be an old green carpet laid out across a hard court.
'It was bizarre. It looked like the kind of Astroturf they use in cricket nets,' says Webley-Smith. 'I'm not sure how much help that will be. But we'll see.'
For many players, no amount of adaptation will compensate for the fact their game was built on the kind of surfaces they played on in their youth. In Europe that means clay. Across the rest of the world it is hard courts. And in Britain, well that is changing.
'Fewer clubs here have grass courts these days,' says Webley-Smith, who was playing on the green stuff from the age of eight. 'I much prefer it, aesthetically if nothing else. For me, it is what tennis should be played on. I remember going to Wimbledon as a kid and seeing those beautiful green courts and thinking: 'I want to play here'.'
Even as developments in ball technology and the type of grass used at the All England Club have made the difference less pronounced, it remains one of the oddities – and attractions – of the sport that the surface conditions have such a profound effect on the style of play. Not that we will ever see a repeat of the match that tried to demonstrate which was the better way of doing things. Not least because the odd half-and-half court for that contest in Majorca took 19 days of hard labour to prepare and reportedly cost an eye-watering £1.2 million.
As for the outcome, much to the delight of his home crowd, Nadal won by two sets to one. A result that was almost immediately forgotten.

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