Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
I had dinner the other night with the unofficial mayor of Camarillo, Ca., Wayne Bryan -- tennis emcee, guitarist (relax Edge, Keith, no threat there!), father of the Bryan brothers, a doubles team dedicated to achieving greatness with the same determination the Federers and Nadals brings to singles.
Wayne was exasperated by the lack of interest that the top male U.S. singles players show toward clay. The prize-money and ranking-points rich European clay circuit is building to critical mass, and the U.S. men are virtual no shows. It's ironic that so many U.S. reporters throw around the "clay-court specialist" label (an exercise in damnation by faint praise) when it would be more accurate to describe Andy Roddick, James Blake, et al as "hard-court specialists."
Here's your proof: I took the top 5 American men (Roddick, Blake, Mardy Fish, Robby Ginepri and Amer Delic) and looked at their spring clay-court schedules; then I picked the men ranked immediately below each of them to see if they were equally indifferent to hard-court tournaments. The results are interesting.
World No. 4 Roddick is 1-1 in clay-court matches, having played one Euro-clay event (Rome). Last summer, Fernando Gonzalez, a Chilean clay-court guy, was 13-4 on hard, in four events. Blake, No. 9, is 5-2 on clay but only 1-1 on the high profile European clay circuit (his other matches were played on clay in Houston, before the spring Euro-swing). The guy ranked right below Blake, Ivan Ljubicic, was 5-2 in two hard court events (Cincinnati and Canada).
The third-highest ranking American, Fish, is 0-1 in Europe (one event), although he did go 1-1 in Houston. Right below him: Xavier Malisse, a Belgian ranked No. 31, who went 9-5 in five hard court summer events. Ginepri, No. 49, is 0-2 on clay as of this week's Hamburg event (he lost first round in Houston, and played just one clay event in Europe). The man right behind him, Arnaud Clement, was 6-5 on hard in North America, taking part in five events.
Lastly, No. 65 Delic won a match in Houston and made it to Europe for just one event, the Italian Open, where he crashed in Round 1. The guy ranked right below him happens to be an American, Vince Spadea. He's 5-3, having played Houston and two European events.
OK, so let's throw Spadea out of the mix and next down in the rankings we have Nicolas Lapentti. He's an Ecuadorian dude who grew up on clay and struggled in 2006, playing mostly Challenger events in the summer. But despite having learned the game on clay, Lapentti found a way to play a hard-court Challenger in Europe in Segovia, meaning he played as many tournaments on hard last summer as Roddick did on clay this year.
So it appears that Spadea is the most prolific -- and successful -- U.S. player on clay as of Hamburg. That tells you something: U.S. players have become hard-court specialists.
