Quote:
Originally Posted by CallMeIshmael
I agree. ~50% of all professional tennis is played on clay courts. ~2% is played on grass. Nadal ran bad when people picked the 4 tournaments that count.
and a lot of soccer is played on asphalt and street surfaces, and yet 0% of that surface is used in pro leagues. i wonder why that is?
if i was the GOAT moon baseball player, would that have any bearing on my earth baseball acumen? no, not really.
for tennis, specifically evaluating the greats, which is what this thread is all about, uses those 4 slams. no one is saying clay doesn't matter. but what the slams say is it matters IDENTICALLY to grass.
in high school we largely played on clay courts. over winter i played primarily on carpet courts! and yet for ALL of our matches, we played on hard surfaces. it sucked i was better on those other surfaces, and thereby weaker in matches. but my ability was evaluated based on how i played in actual matches on the actual surfaces rather than the arbitrary practicing situations.