STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Halep and Swiatek hold sway on clay
Assessing clay-court formamong theworld’s leadingmen has been comparatively straightforward in recent years given the domination of Rafael Nadal, NovakDjokovic andDominic Thiem, but it has been a very different storywith thewomen. The fact that in the last eight years the FrenchOpen has produced eight different women’s singles champions and 13 different finalists tells its own story. Over the last four years SimonaHalep has been themost consistently successful female player on clay, winningmore than 81 per cent of hermatches on the surface, though Iga Swiatek is not far behind. Of the leading players, nobody has playedmore tour-level matches on clay in that period than Halep, who has contested 54. Barbora Krejcikova, last year’s RolandGarros champion, has actually played 73 clay-court singlesmatches (won 57, lost 16) over those four years, butmost were below tour level, the Czech having broken into the top 100 in singles only in the autumn of 2020. It will come as a surprise tomany that Petra Kvitova has been one of the game’smost successful women on clay in recent
seasons.The two-timesWimbledon champion is usuallymore comfortable on quicker surfaces, but she has won clay-court titles inMadrid, Stuttgart and Prague in the last four years and was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2020. Only Halep and Swiatek havewon a bigger percentage of their clay-court matches since 2018. No player wonmore tour-level matches on clay in 2021 than Paula Badosa, whowon 17 and lost three.The 24-year-old Spaniard, who climbed 62 places in the rankings last year to finish the season at No 8 in theworld, won the title in Belgrade andwas a quarter-finalist at Roland Garros. In contrast, Naomi Osaka has played just fivematches on clay in nearly three years, winning only two of them.The 24-year-old Japanese, who has won all four of her Grand Slam titles on hard courts, did not play anywhere after the US Open in 2020 (when the abbreviated European clay-court seasonwas played in the autumn) and cut short her campaign at last year’s FrenchOpen after the controversy surrounding hermedia commitments.
IGA SWIATEK
SIMONA HALEP
STEFFI GRAF
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