French Open 2016: Andy Murray’s statistics on clay are at a career-best level and suggest he is ready to triumph at Roland Garros
Andy Murray is better placed than ever to reach the final of the French Open for the first time in his career after his best year on clay.
For the majority of his career, grass and hard courts proved to be more hospitable surfaces for the world No2 yet Murray, who has reached the final of every grand slam except Roland Garros, picked up the first clay court titles of his career in Munich and Madrid last year and has remained similarly dominant this season in reaching the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters, the final of the Madrid Open and winning the Rome Masters.
Having won 19 matches and lost just three in the past 52 weeks, giving him a win ratio of 86.4 per cent, the Scot now boasts the best win percentage on clay of any player in the top 50 over the last year.
That tops Rafael Nadal’s 84.8 per cent record and Novak Djokovic’s 83.3 per cent, but perhaps most pleasing to Murray will be how strongly it compares to his comparatively modest 70 per cent win ratio on clay for the first 10 years of his career.
So far this season the only man to have won more ranking points from clay court events than Murray’s 1,960 is Nadal with 2,040 — yet the Spaniard has played four tournaments on his favoured surface while Murray has competed in just three.
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Before amassing 2,060 points last season, Murray had only once picked up more than 1,000 from playing on clay – picking up 1,530 in 2011 when he reached the semi-finals at Monte Carlo, Rome and Roland Garros.
And this year’s wins have been Murray’s most commanding according to the dominance ratio stat which measures a player’s percentage of return points won against percentage of serve points lost.
The 29-year-old has a dominance ratio of 1.60 so far in 2016 — the best of his career to date. Djokovic has only made such a high score twice in his career while Nadal, who holds the record for most titles won on clay, has not done so for four years.
What's more, Murray is now winning against players who used to get the better of him on the crushed brick.
His victory over Djokovic in Rome earlier this month was his first against the world No1 on clay and he has won his last two meetings with Nadal having lost in all seven encounters with the Spaniard before last year.
Similarly, Murray's victory over David Ferrer at last year's French Open was his first in five attempts and world No8 Tomas Berdych was defeated for the first time in four attempts in Madrid this year.
If there is one player Murray still needs to prove himself against on clay it is reigning Roland Garros champion Stan Wawrinka who holds a 100 per cent record against him on the surface from three matches, yet the Swiss cannot match the Scot's dominance ratio in the last year.
All the signals and stats therefore suggest one thing: Murray is perfectly primed to become the first British men's French Open champion since Fred Perry 81 years ago.