Casper Ruud says that clay lovers are in the minority
Casper Ruud believes he is one of the few players who prefer clay courts among the top 100.
Ruud feels that most players in the elite group prefer playing on hard courts.
He hopes that his love of clay will give him an edge in April and May as the tour slows down and gets dirty.
Ruud says that he takes some comfort from that familiarity but doesn’t believe that it grants him an easy wins.
He feels that patience is the great strength of players who are handy on clay as they back themselves to keep going without making any errors.
“If you look at the top 100 players in the world, I would say like 70 or 75 of them prefer probably to play on hard court,” he said on his podcast Ruud Talk.
“There are much fewer players that actually like more to play on clay. I feel like I’m one of them and I think that could be somewhat of an advantage.
“When we come to clay, you have people that really don’t want to be there at all. They want to get ready for grass and are looking forward for the rest of the year after clay.
“Then you can have some of these matches where it might just be enough to hit three or four heavy shots in a row and your opponent might do something stupid or crazy because he doesn’t have the patience to play with you. That’s something that is an advantage for clay-court players.
“Then again, if a clay-court player is playing more of a hard-court player, the hard-court player probably feels, ‘I’m going to have all these shots to hit down’.
“I can hit winners from anywhere because this guy is just playing top spin all the time. So it goes back and forth.
“But on clay, for those who like to play on clay, it’s very comfortable and a nice feeling to have.
“The feeling is not so much like ‘I’m going to win every match’, but it’s going to be like ‘I’m going to be very tough to beat on clay because if I am physically ready, I can last for many hours, and whoever wants to beat me on clay will have to play incredible tennis for a minimum of three hours’.”
Ruud is currently in action at the Estoril Open in Portugal ahead of the first clay court Masters event of the season in Monaco.
