Tennis.com: Hitting the Dirt: U.S. men have extra clay incentive

It’s no great revelation that America’s top male players are not clay-court enthusiasts.

Andy Roddick, James Blake, Mardy Fish, Robby Ginepri as well as up-and-comers Sam Querrey, John Isner and Donald Young all feel more sure-footed on a nice firm hardcourt or slick green sod. But conditions on the tennis tour aren’t always ideally suited to a player’s game and whether they like or not, a clay court season does exist.

Now, they’re also facing the fact that even when the calendar is not in the midst of dirt ball season, a clay-court outing can emerge. This will be the case for the reigning Davis Cup champions – Roddick, Blake, Bob and Mike Bryan – who are slated, barring injuries, to head to Spain in September for an intriguing semifinal that is certain to be played on clay.

Will it give the band of Yankee Doodle Dandies extra incentive to show what they can do on the red stuff?

French Davis Cup captain Guy Forget, a former top-5 player and Davis Cup champion, not to mention an excellent student of the game, weighed in on how the Americans can best give themselves a chance to defend their Davis Cup crown on foreign soil. “They’re going to have to, first of all, practice their game on the clay during the clay court season and, hopefully, they get some good results throughout these tournaments,” Forget said. “They will go into that tie with more confidence.”But whatever the Americans produce during the spring, he added, the Spanish are unlikely to be cowed.

“[The] Spanish guys have been playing on that surface since they were six years old, and they have the best game for clay, period. You can’t just learn that within a couple of weeks,” said Forget, before offering a few tips to the US team that had just vanquished his squad in the Davis Cup quarterfinals.  “I think it’s wrong to try to change your game. I think it’s best to try to impose your game, even if it’s on clay. We’ve seen a guy like Edberg in the past playing well on clay. John McEnroe at one point played good on the clay. Andre Agassi won the French once.”

It was almost as if Roddick had chatted with Forget about the matter when he later suggested the Americans should try to realize their clay potential for their own benefit, rather than to prove something the Spanish contingent.

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