{"id":1024,"date":"2012-11-19T13:24:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T18:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1024"},"modified":"2012-11-19T13:24:41","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T18:24:41","slug":"if-rafa-only-plays-on-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/19\/if-rafa-only-plays-on-clay\/","title":{"rendered":"If Rafa Only Plays on Clay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since suffering the injury that would lead him to miss the second half of 2012, Rafael Nadal<\/a> has said that he may have to cut back his tournament schedule so that he plays fewer matches on hard courts.<\/p>\n

For someone who wants to remain at the top of the game, that’s a tough ask. \u00a0The majority of ATP ranking points come from hard-court tournaments. \u00a0If Rafa stuck to the clay, he would only be able to contest one of the four majors.<\/p>\n

Becoming a full-time clay courter would almost certainly knock Nadal out of the running for world #1. \u00a0(As well as give him plenty of R&R in Mallorca.) \u00a0But how bad is it? \u00a0Let’s consider the possibility that in some future season, he only plays on clay.<\/p>\n

Here is a possible 2013 schedule for a clay-only player, along with each event’s ranking points. \u00a0Three 250s are on this schedule, placed to provide warm-ups after each multi-week layoff:<\/p>\n

20-Feb  Buenos Aires   250   \n27-Feb  Acapulco       500   \n09-Apr  Casablanca     250   \n16-Apr  Monte Carlo    1000  \n23-Apr  Barcelona      500   \n07-May  Madrid         1000  \n14-May  Rome           1000  \n28-May  Roland Garros  2000  \n09-Jul  Stuttgart      250   \n16-Jul  Hamburg        500<\/pre>\n
If Rafa ran the table and won all of those events, that’s 7000 ranking points (only two of the 250s would count). \u00a0Unless the rest of the field becomes much more level, that won’t be good enough for the #1 ranking. \u00a0But it is a greater point total than Rafa has right now, and it would keep him in the top four. \u00a0Even averaging finalist points for these 10 events would allow him to remain in the top eight.<\/p>\n
(Getting credit for those tournament wins would be a little trickier. \u00a0Players are required to show up for at least 4 500-level events, including one after the US Open. \u00a0If you only play on clay, there are no options. \u00a0To avoid the dreaded “zero-pointer” for not playing, Rafa might have to contest, say, Valencia. \u00a0However, points from those events no longer automatically count as one of a player’s top 18 events, so as long as the requirement was met, Rafa’s six non-slam, non-required-Masters events could be Monte Carlo, Acapulco, Barcelona, Hamburg, and two 250s.)<\/p>\n
In practice, it’s tough to imagine that Rafa (or anyone else, short of Alessio Di Mauro<\/a>) would avoid hard-court events entirely. \u00a0Much more likely is a scenario in which he plays all the clay court events possible and competes in hard-court events only when he feels sufficiently healthy. \u00a0That might mean an occasional semifinal run; it probably also means more second-round exits<\/a>.<\/p>\n
As unlikely and unusual as it would be, the all-clay schedule may be Nadal’s best route to setting more records. \u00a0With fewer injuries and much more rest, it’s easy to imagine him racking up another four or five French Open titles, along with perhaps ten more Masters crowns. \u00a0It would be an unusual career trajectory, to be sure, but it would also generate more fodder for the next ten years of GOAT debates.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since suffering the injury that would lead him to miss the second half of 2012, Rafael Nadal has said that he may have to cut back his tournament schedule so that he plays fewer matches on hard courts. For someone who wants to remain at the top of the game, that’s a tough ask. \u00a0The … Continue reading If Rafa Only Plays on Clay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rankings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}