As we head into the
French Open, the grand finale of the clay season, Team UTR took a look at the top-10 men and women who currently hold the sport’s highest Clay UTRs. For the men, Rafa “King of Clay”
Nadal is the clear favorite (check out our
blog on his near-perfect UTR), with
Alexander Zverev coming in at the second spot as the only other male player holding an above 16.0 UTR.
The WTA is another story. The top-10 women all hold current Clay UTRs within a 0.17 range of one another. Today,
Elina Svitolina has the highest Clay UTR of 13.34, with
Caroline Wozniacki, the #2 WTA ranked player, holding onto a 13.17 UTR to come in as the #10 UTR rated player on clay.
To understand the data, the
UTR Powered by Oracle algorithm looks at a player’s most recent 30 matches over the last 12 months. Today’s Clay UTRs are only looking at the athlete’s matches played on clay over the last 12 months, last year’s Roland Garros matches are included in this data.
Let’s take a closer look:
Top 10 on WTA
Elina Svitolina leads the pack for the women on clay, with a 13.34 Clay UTR. She’s heading to France coming off her dominating win in Rome and making it to the quarterfinals at Stuttgart. Coming in with the second-highest Clay UTR is
Karolina Pliskova. She had a good run in Madrid, with key wins over some strong players including
Simona Halep,
Sloane Stephens, and
Azarenka and made it to the semi-finals. She is coming off of a win in Stuttgart so we’ll see what she will do on the French clay this year. We’re also watching
Petra Kvitova (Clay UTR 13.28) who took the trophy in Madrid and
Kiki Bertens (Clay UTR 13.23), who lost to Kvitova in the finals in Madrid but took home the win in Charleston this year. Anything could happen in the women’s draw at Roland Garros- the field is tight and these players are ready to go!
Svitolina heading to Roland Garros coming off her dominating win in Rome
For the men, there’s the King of Clay, and then there’s everyone else. Rafa won Rome, Barcelona and Monte Carlo with a 17-1 record on his favorite surface this year, with one loss to Alexander Zverev in Madrid. And speaking of Zverev, let’s not count him out. He’s already won two titles on clay this year, taking home the trophy in Madrid and Munich and made it into the finals at Rome and the semi-finals of Monte Carlo.
Alexander Zverev is currently main threat to Rafael Nadal
In addition to being the only player to beat Rafa on clay all year, he’s also the only player with a Clay UTR higher than 16.0.
Filip Krajinovic is making Roland Garros his first appearance on clay this season, and he holds a 34-7 record on clay in the past 12 months.
Milos Raonic won’t be playing at Roland Garros, making some room in the field to capture the title for players like Filip Krajinovic, who is making his first clay appearance all season this weekend. His record on clay over the past 12 months is 34-7, so if he can maintain that this year, he’ll make an impact on the court.
Novak Djokovic has a high Clay UTR due to his top performance last year, but he played well in Rome this year, which resulted in a bump in his rating. He has a 7-4 record on clay this year and last year made it to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros.
Top 10 on ATP
The first round of the French Open starts this Sunday, May 27th and can be seen live on Tennis Channel.
