{"id":18308,"date":"2026-09-01T16:44:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/clay-to-hard-swing\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T16:44:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:44:38","slug":"clay-to-hard-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/clay-to-hard-swing\/","title":{"rendered":"Who survives the clay-to-hard switch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three weeks, two surfaces, and a ranking that punishes anyone who plays through it. The clay-to-hard switch is the season\u2019s cruellest fortnight.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-problem\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The problem<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The points from last year\u2019s hard-court run expire in the same week the clay season ends. Skip the switch and the ranking drops; play it and the body does.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/courtTennis-1024x683.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18183\" srcset=\"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/courtTennis-1024x683.webp 1024w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/courtTennis-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/courtTennis-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/courtTennis-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/courtTennis.webp 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Practice courts, resurfaced overnight between events.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 id=\"who-copes\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who copes<\/h2>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Players with a flat backhand: the ball skids on hard courts and the stroke does not need rebuilding.<\/li><li>Players who train on hard courts year round and treat clay as the exception.<\/li><li>Nobody over thirty, according to the last five seasons of results.<\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three weeks, two surfaces, and a ranking that punishes anyone who plays through it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[104,153,210],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-18308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-clay","tag-hard-courts","tag-rankings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=18308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}