Court Talk

It being late December in Australia, I am obviously watching cricket. Because that is what you do when it is this time of year (aka the tennis dead season).

Anyway, I'm not going to change sports on you suddenly, on account of cricket really isn't particularly exciting, but there is one thing I'm interested in. In cricket, you often hear people talk about the way different grounds play - the MCG and the SCG and the WACA and etc etc all play very differently to each other, to the extent where you might put different people on your team for each ground. (Spinners for the SCG, etc.)

So this got me thinking about the different courts in tennis. Obviously there are different surfaces, and clay isn't going to play like grass, but does the actual court differ much? I suppose they do, come to think of it - you always hear about how courts play heavy and stuff like that, especially with clay. But is it the same with hard courts? Physical different surfaces aside, do courts really play any different? Is court 2 at the Aussie Open a different place to play, court-wise, than court 19?

This was a pretty pointless ramble. But it's something you don't hear about too often. To what extent is it an advantage or a disadvantage for players to play on different courts within the same tournament?