Monte Carlo to Paris — string of clay court tennis
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Clay court tennis known to be hard labour from the early days of tennis. Number of shots needed and time taken to open the court to set up an attack entails many shot. Players developed on clay courts say grass is for cows and the players developed on grass said clay is for farming.Meanwhile, in the world more players developed on asphalt concrete hard courts, most popular now. ATP and WTA says if you are a tennis player, you must adapt.
The current European tennis season is all about the original playing surfaces, grass and clay. Grass is the original surface for tennis and clay courts evolved in the European colonies when tennis went to warm, rainy, hot and humid countries. Asphalt reduced the maintenance cost and increased usable time. Players pay the price physically playing on hard courts. When it comes to events, Europeans are showing preference to grass and clay courts. They are spectator friendly.
Italian Open
The Italian Open is on now, a clay court event with great player development history. Italy took tennis to South America. Today, Chileans, Argentinians, Brazilians, Venezuelans and Colombians are always in grand slam events. Their player development matches eastern European countries of today.
Prior to Italian ATP/WTA event Madrid, Barcelona, Monte Carlo had their events with attractive tennis and good media coverage. The media magic of sport that world talked about 40 years ago is reality of today.
ATP Tennis
Travelling players experience travel stress, changes in bedroom, bathroom, type of food, temperature, humidity and the clock every week, year in and year out, many experience burnout. Another stress is to remain exposed to the press if you are in Top 50 of the world ranking.
Alcaraz, the ATP No.1, lost to ATP 137 in Rome few days ago. It was in every news channel. He has lost matches before but now one before Paris Grand Slam is a media sensation.
It is common and only an astute observer would notice, prior to Grand Slams, players sham and get rest needed for the five set sand court Grand Slam. Often they would make the loss look natural as possible to avoid being pulled up by the professional bodies. Travelling and playing is very tedious. This is an escape route.
All the same to the spectators in Rome or seated at home, Italian Open was very attractive with women and men exhibiting best of clay court tennis in full force.
Courts in Rome – global warming
The European clay courts are burnt clay. They are re-laid every spring. The underlying surface constructed designed for quick drainage. The weather in Italy was very wet this spring. They had record-breaking rain. Even with state of the art water drainage, base of the courts lost their firmness. Meaning the underlying layers retained water. A situation almost never known to be.
Playing matches in Europe with light snowflakes floating, is not the best of condition to spot ball coming at you. The tennis courts can accommodate it, but not heavy rain. Court beds are porous coal and riverbed sand. [Same as football fields]. In Rome this year, players voiced their discomfort with the court. Some of it reached the known news channels.
Favourites
The semi-final line up players the events preceding Paris Grand Slam are an indication of what will happen there. The trio –Federer, Nadal and Djokovic — are not the names to look forward. Djokovic is the last of the three to play. For other reasons than tennis, Djikovic is putting himself into unpalatable positions. He had to miss entire spring programme of USA this year.
In the men’s, the dominant name is young Alcaraz. Tisitsipas, Rublev, Karatsev, Rune, Sinner, Medvedev, Ruud, AliAssime and a very strong second string of players. On a given day, anyone of them can topple any of the favourites. Clay courts slowing down the game immensely. It will be the question as to who can take the strain to play more shots without being tired. Alcaraz lost to Morozan, who is 135 in the ATP ranking. It is an indicator of what can happen.
In women, Swiatek, Sabalenka, Pegula, Garcia, Gauff, Jabeur, Sakkari, Rybakina, Kasatskina, Kvitova and Bencic are the possible contenders for the Paris title. This shows possibility is very much an open situation.
Modern tennis is extremely physical. For women, this formula is very strenuous. Before WADA, the UN anti-doping body, people in tennis circle mentioned the drug offenders list among women players exceeded that of men by a large margin. It is clean now. Never has it has been this clean for a long time. Thanks to WADA.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA and ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–