Billy has also been more successful on clay (although not the reason as madadman points out) - hes won more titles and been in more finals on clay than any other surface
Kovalik is a highly ranked player. He has played 12 Challenger finals in his career and all of them, 12, are on clay. So, it is his surface and Billy was straight off hardcourts and into this...so no surprise at all and for Billy , nothing really lost
Loss 64 Apr 2013 Itajaí, Brasil Challenger Clay Brazil Rogério Dutra da Silva 64, 36, 16
Loss 65 Feb 2014 Turkey F3, Antalya Futures Hard Ukraine Artem Smirnov 67(47), 61, 46
Win 75 Mar 2014 Greece F1, Heraklion Futures Hard Czech Republic Jan Hernych 63, 76(86)
Win 85 Apr 2014 Greece F4, Heraklion Futures Hard Serbia Dejan Katic 60, 62
Win 95 Jun 2014 Slovenia F2, Maribor Futures Clay Belgium Julien Cagnina 76(72), 61
Win 105 Aug 2014 Meerbusch, Germany Challenger Clay Russia Andrey Kuznetsov 61, 64
Loss 106 Jun 2015 Mestre, Italy Challenger Clay Argentina Máximo González 16, 36
Win 116 Apr 2016 Napoli, Italy Challenger Clay Belgium Arthur De Greef 63, 62
Loss 117 May 2017 Rome, Italy Challenger Clay Italy Marco Cecchinato 46, 46
Loss 118 Oct 2017 Lima, Perù Challenger Clay Austria Gerald Melzer 57, 67(47)
Win 128 Jun 2018 Poprad, Slovakia Challenger Clay Belgium Arthur De Greef 64, 60
Loss 129 Oct 2018 Braunschweig, Germany Challenger Clay Germany Yannick Hanfmann 26, 63, 36
Win 139 Aug 2019 Szczecin, Poland Challenger Clay Argentina Guido Andreozzi 67(57), 62, 64
Loss 1310 Oct 2019 Barcelona, Spain Challenger Clay Italy Salvatore Caruso 46, 26
Win 1410 Sep 2022 Tulln an der Donau, Austria Challenger Clay Netherlands Jelle Sels 76(86), 76(73)
Loss 1411 Oct 2022 Parma, Italy Challenger Clay Kazakhstan Timofey Skatov 57, 76(72), 46
L32: (5) Luca van Assche (FRA) WR 108 defeated Ryan Peniston WR 151 by 2-6 6-3 6-2
L32: Jozef Kovalik (SVK) WR 153 defeated (SE) Billy Harris WR 373 by 2 & 1
Big 'oops' from me. Been busy today and not following the results. Just sent Billy a 'good luck this week' message. Seems like I was a bit late. Thank goodness for the 'delete' button LOL.