* !Picby Pete Bodo*
While I was out at the National Tennis Center last week working on my Melanie Oudin post, USTA coach Jorge Todero and his charge Varvara Lepchenko called home. Lepchenko was doing great—most of you know she not only qualified for Madrid, but reached the quarterfinals. The result boosted her up to No. 59 in the WTA rankings, and into the lead (over Venus Williams) for that prized fourth and final spot on the team the USTA will take to London to contest the Olympic tennis event at Wimbledon.
When Lepchenko was asked how she liked the blue clay of Madrid, she merrily pointed out that it was a lot like the green Har-Tru on which the players in the USTA training center headquarters in New York practice every day. It was truly an unexpected but welcome advantage.
Most of you also know that Serena Williams won Madrid on Sunday, to collect just her third clay-court title since the spring of 2008. She earned the other two on Charleston's Har-Tru, and hasn't won a tournament on European-style red clay since 2002 (Rome, defeating Justine Henin in final).
Are these facts unrelated? I think not. The blue clay seems very similar to the gray-green Har-Tru (a.k.a. "American clay") that has been used at dozens of tournaments, albeit most of them in the U.S., since the beginning of the Open era. The U.S. Open was played on Har-Tru from 1975-77; the three champions were, respectively starting in 1975, Manolo Orantes, Jimmy Connors, and Guillermo Vilas. You'll note that two of those three were Spanish-speaking, clay-court experts, Connors being the exception. What he talked mostly was trash.
So forgive me if I think this hue and cry over the blue clay of Madrid is absurd, and that the players who criticized it most vocally are way out of line. This is neither the first nor most significant (historically) attempt to depart from what has become to many the tedium of red clay, and I think it would a pity if Rafael Nadal's carping and Novak Djokovic's borderline tank-job against his Serbian pal Janko Tipsarevic forced Madrid to return to the old, rust-colored stuff. Something very much like that could happen, though, given that red clay is the default-surface (actually, the only surface) at this time of year, and in the end, who wants to rock the boat, or trigger a boycott by two of the top three players?
There's no need to reiterate the shortcomings of the blue clay in Madrid, but it's worth pointing out that none of the criticisms had much to do with the fact that it was blue. The complaints had to do mainly with the density of the foundation and the "slipperiness" of the top coating, shortcomings that probably have less to do with the color of the clay than with the fact that the courts have to be dug up and re-planted after each tournament. To that end, Tiriac has been assured by the Madrid government that the courts will stay and be maintained until next year's event (the rest of Tiriac's comments in the piece are also worth reading).
This raises the question, do we really want a blue clay court that plays just like a red one? I mean, heaven forbid that Nadal or Djokovic would have to adjust and adapt to playing on a court that plays more like Har-Tru than the same-old, same-old red clay, the way Connors, Vilas, Bjorn Borg and others were obliged to do at the U.S. Open.
And let's add a little more perspective here: Connors was defending champ at the U.S. Open the first year it was played on Har-Tru (he had demolished Ken Rosewall in the final of the previous year, on grass). As well, Pat Cash won Wimbledon on grass in 1987, and he narrowly lost the Australian Open final on grass to Stefan Edberg. Cash had a terrific grass-court game, but in 1988 the Australian Open moved to Melbourne Park and the event was played on the now familiar hard courts. Cash sucked up his disappointment and still made the final, where he lost a terrific match, 8-6 in the fifth, to Mats Wilander.
It's hard for me to muster much sympathy for Nadal and Djokovic; I just hope that together they haven't killed what seems to me a promising respite from the glut of red-clay events at this time of year. Each in his own way was being a little slippery last week, too.
*
The Racquet Scientist posts will be oriented toward hard news and hot-button issues and stress brevity, clarity, and making the best use of my contacts in the game. We will be following up these posts with video and/or podcasts to share your reactions with our listeners and viewers, so please keep your comments on-topic.