A Study on Men’s and Women’s Surface Preferences from the Same Country

Abstract

There are some pretty noticeable differences. Canada and Portugal, for example, rate as solid hard-court countries on the men's side but mild clay-court countries on the women's side. And it's not like there are single players like Milos Raonic skewing the average; players like VasekPospisil, Frank Dancevic, and Erik Chvojka have Raonic's same surface numbers. And there isn't a single Canadian men's player that has a significant clay preference. The Canadian women, however, have a more mixed draw of surface preferences. For every hardcourt specialist like Stephanie Dubois, there's another clay-court specialist like Sharon Fichman. The distribution between hard and clay preferences skews about even. This brings up the million dollar question that's bugging me: Should the men's and women's surface maps converge to the same over time? Your answer roughly reflects two equally plausible views. If you say yes, that says surface preference is mostly determined by your home country's common courts and any differences are transient and due to small sample size. This is supported by a reasonable number of countries that are colored the same on the men's and women's maps. If you say no, that says you can have meaningful differences between men's and women's surface preferences from the same country. The most fitting explanation would be some sort of selection bias with regards to what kinds of players are more likely to succeed at an early age.