Tennis Forum banner

Bring back the Blue Clay

5K views 72 replies 31 participants last post by  Ban Boy 
#1 ·
 
#30 ·
+1. No wait, on this issue I'm taking two votes - +2
 
#16 ·
Blame that whiny old complain-a-lot Nadal for its demise. Federer and Serena had no issues with the surface.
Neither did Wozniacki.. She was playing some amazing tennis. I think she would have won here already had they kept it blue. The color had nothing to do with it. It was the way it was compounded. And that could have been relatively easily correctly.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Djokovic and Nadal killed it. They were acting like they were on ice. They were against the Blue Clay before the tournament started. So they did their best to kill it.

Federer just played without making any fuss. And all ladies didn't complain. Wozniacki played some of her best matches on it. She almost served a bagel to Serena. Djokovic was exaggerating his moves, making wild slides and fake gestures all over the places. Federer didn't get in any of the acting. He was smooth as usual. The man can play anywhere, any time with the same grace.
 
#21 ·
Thanks for posting that, it was a fun match, really enjoy it when this 2 play actually.

I also loved the blue clay.
 
#24 ·
First and foremost, these players have absolutely EVERY right to speak their mind, if they feel like something isn't right. Who are we to sit on our asses and judge them for having an opinion? Some of you need to get off your damn high horse, for real! Far as the blue clay goes, yes, it was easier to see the ball, but I thought the shade of blue was a bit intense. Something like a Dark or Navy Blue may have been a better choice. Just a thought. However, it was the way the courts were set up, that was the major problem. I remembered seeing a number of players having trouble that year, because of those courts. The court movement didn't look very natural at all, so it's amazing that no one sustained a major injury that whole week, tbh!

I'm not against blue clay. I would be open to seeing a comeback, but Madrid would need to do a far better job professionally, of building these courts, and ensuring complete accuracy and safety for the players.
 
#32 ·
These court were slippery, because of colouring technology, not because they were blue. There was the same discussion about it not a long time ago.
Blue clay of course had a lot of advantages and I loved to watch it, but player's safety is the most important thing.
I think it could be used better way to colour the courts now, but Rafa and Nole wouldn't play on it anyway.
 
#38 ·
No - it was clearly too slippy, the fact that Djoko and Nadal, two of the best movers ever struggled, shows how much it was geared towards big servers etc. which just isn't appropriate for clay.
 
#40 ·
These two were against the Blue Clay, before even setting foot on it. It could have been the best clay court ever, they didn't care. So when it turned out it was not well compounded, they exaggerated their movement; sliding wide.. acting as if they were on ice: mostly djokovic. That was ridiculous acting.. They wanted the same color as in Paris. That was these 2, Nadal and Djokovic's problem.. It was first mental, before any it was something else. They were going to do their best to kill the Blue Clay. And they found an easy excuse to do it.

Federer said it. It wasn't that bad. But these new guys aren't used to different surfaces. Nowadays, clay, hard court, indoor, grass, all play the same. Federer said that way back, it was all different and the players had to adjust.
Watch the youtube interview I posted in the previous page.
 
#45 · (Edited)
tennis.com - Moya on Madrid: Salt made blue clay slippery

Carlos Moya, the assistant tournament director of the Madrid Open and former world No. 1, writes in El Pais that before he left for a senior tournament in Columbia the week before Madrid began, he and others played on the blue clay and it was fine. However, when he returned on the Monday of the Madrid Masters, he was surprised to find that the courts were playing nothing like they were the week before.

"They had changed," he wrote. "I could not believe what I saw. [Getting traction] was almost impossible and I had rarely seen courts that slid so much, especially in the three main courts."

Moya said that the team eventually discovered that the salt laid down on top of the courts to keep moisture away and the color uniform ended up crystallizing into an unbreakable film—due to too much heat and water—causing the surface to become slippery. It was the same salt used at Roland Garros. "That was discovered too late and we found that what works in Paris doesn't work here, but rather the opposite."
They needed to change the salt keeping the colour or technology of producing blue clay (but it was too late).
 
#46 ·
#49 ·
In case you're interested… I found this article about the Roland Garros courts whilst I was looking for info on blue clay.

NYT.


Some Rouge Dresses Up Courts at Roland Garros

By JOHN BRANCHMAY 28, 2010

PARIS — It really is not red clay. The famous courts of the French Open are white limestone, frosted with a few millimeters of powdered red brick dust.

This was evident as Bruno Slastan, second in command of court maintenance at Roland Garros, scraped the surface of Court Suzanne Lenglen with his shoe. With a few swipes, the reddish powder gave way and revealed a firm white base below.

The “brick broken,” as Slastan, a Frenchman, gamely explained in English, is a cover-up, applied for three reasons. It keeps the otherwise white courts from blinding players and fans. It allows the players to move and slide. And it looks cool.

In other words, the beauty of the Roland Garros courts is only skin deep.

It is created by a powder with the look and feel of ground cinnamon. For 20 euros (about $24) at the souvenir stands, fans can buy a flacon de terre battue — a glass, bell-shaped flask filled with a few ounces of pulverized brick from a factory about 60 miles north of Paris.

Roland Garros estimates that it uses 99,000 pounds of the crushed brick each year on the courts. All those tons are spread to about the depth of a tenth of an inch across 20 courts.

Each of the courts, including the surface surrounding them, measures nearly 10,000 square feet.

Every morning during the tournament, the courts are dusted again, ever so lightly. Much of it ends up in that night’s laundry, especially on the players’ socks.

But the crushed brick is just deep enough to allow footprints and, quite helpfully, ball marks. It is shallow enough not to make the court too spongy or slippery, or to allow all of the powder to accumulate into tiny piles that could affect the way the ball bounces.

“With one millimeter, if you slide, you see the white limestone,” Slastan said. “But with a few millimeters, you don’t see the white limestone on the television.”

Before matches and between sets, a couple of workers smooth the red surface by dragging rectangular swatches of chain-link across the surface, a quick fix commonly used on baseball infields. Other workers hurriedly sweep the dust from the white lines. The result is a satisfying dress-up, like a just-vacuumed carpet.

By the end of a set, the baseline areas are trampled from the foot traffic. There is a worn line on either side of the net where the ball boys and girls zipped back and forth. The space between the net and the baseline is a Pollock rendering of the recent action.

Tennis began as a lawn game in England. But in warmer, drier climates, grass courts are not practical.

“It’s too hot,” Slastan said. “In England, it is raining very long.”

Most courts at Roland Garros are constructed of several layers of materials, about three feet deep. Most of that is filled with small stones topped with smaller gravel. (The two main show courts and three other courts are built on slabs of concrete, topped with a thick layer of sand.) The base is topped with a six-inch layer of volcanic rock and three inches of porous limestone.

Drainage is the reason play after a rain delay can begin just minutes after the tarps are pulled.

“All clay courts are different,” Venus Williams said. “None play the same. This one plays the best.”

Each April, a tractor churns the limestone, like plowing a field. The limestone on Court 11 has been there 20 years, Slastan said, but the other courts received fresh limestone about 12 years ago.

Over time, it takes on a pink hue as it mixes with what is left of the previous year’s crushed brick.

The courts are pressed back into shape with rollers and exacting planes. For a day, they are white.

But about a ton of the crushed brick is pressed onto the surface of each court with rollers, then drenched in water. The process is repeated several times until a thin, compact layer of red frosting tops each court.

Lines are measured and scraped out of the red surface, down to the limestone, and then painted white with the same type of thick paint used on roads.

Getting all the courts ready takes about a month. When the French Open begins, four workers (six on the show courts) are assigned to the care of each court.

At the end of each day’s play, the courts are doused in water, then covered for the night. The limestone can dry and crack if allowed to simply bake day after day, Slastan said.

During the first few days of this year’s French Open, the courts were dry and played fast, but rain and cooler weather slowed the action.

Early each morning, long before the crowds arrive, 55 pounds of crushed brick, packaged in a plastic bag like topsoil, is spread evenly around the court.

The courts were pristine and ready on a recent morning. A couple of players and coaches came to practice at Lenglen Court. Slastan spotted an enemy of his handiwork — a specific style of shoe that, he said, scrapes the court’s surface more than others.

He watched with a bit of resignation as the players dug up his handwork.

“They attack,” he said.​
 
#54 ·
Yes, clay courts are repeatedly watered to keep the clay a little sticky, otherwise it gets too loose and dusty. That's the primary purpose. The colour of the clay (crushed bricks) depends on how wet it is, it gets lighter as it dries out. Blue clay is no different from red clay in this respect.
 
#53 ·
blue clay is bullsh*t.

there is already too much homogenisation with all court surfaces being blue. the AU, the USO plus all the other HC tournaments.

i like the mystique and the difference of orange clay. the dirt, the sliding, the umpire coming down to check the mark rather than hawkeye. clay is not something they should be fcuking with... and the colour is a fundamental part of that
 
#58 ·
Put the the Blue Clay in Stuttgart. The ladies will just show up and play tennis. And organizers will know not to spray too much salt on the surface. The problem can be corrected. Nadal is opposed to innovation in any way, shape or form. He was complaining like a spoiled child before even stepping on the court.
The court looks gorgeous.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top