[brett32z]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

So this isn't entirely rambling, let's talk about Court Preferences. These can play a significant role, certainly during the initial years, but even at the highest level they play a big role each week. My goal right now is to get as close to a 60/40/0/0 split as I can on my players, making sure that one of Hard/Clay is built up, and then tailoring his secondary one based off his current percentages when I pick him up or maybe what courts seem most prominent in his country. (I know that's dumb, but when it's not a big difference I also try signing up for tournaments geographically close to his home country... unnecessary sure, but helps a little with my immersion!) I'm not sure if they are solely based off what percentage of your past matches have been on each surface or there is a little bit of hard coding built in for individual players, but they're definitely fairly set in stone by age 21/22. One other thing to note is that by that top level I've arrived at (Tommy Simms just turned 23, 4.9/3.6, ranked #23), practice sessions on grass (his secondary preference at 35%) are much less useful than practice sessions on hard/clay, partly because he's one of the best players in the world on grass but mostly because very few top players end up in those, and even being placed in Tier 1 I'd only get 2 decent practice matches at best in a week. So if you do try specializing in grass/indoor it might be worth baking a couple extra points in during those 18-22 year old years, because you'll likely be losing them once you're in the top 30 and playing such a varied schedule/dominating most practice opponents below the top 50.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on court preference strategy? I have a soon to be 15 year old in GW11 with 49%H/37%G/10%C/2%I. Should I be actively shaping that one way or another?