It's Clay Time!
Well, not here in the U.S., but in the rest of the tennis world, the red dirt is the surface du jour; it's only 24 days until the French open begins, and with it the annual questions as to why U.S. players have such poor results on clay.
Bonnie DeSimone of ESPN.com got some insight from Jim Courier, who as a two-time winner at Roland Garros, knows of what he speaks.
The posters over at Peter Bodo's TennisWorld are weighing in with their usual acuity. (Don't you love that photo?)
And Joel Drucker, who is now writing a weekly column for CBS Sportsline, opens his new gig with a great piece on this topic. (That Drucker has landed this job is welcome in several ways--there's never enough great reporting and writing in tennis, and its an indication that mainstream sports sites are willing to pay dedicated freelancers to write about tennis again. See DeSimone above and Matt Cronin, who writes regularly for Fox Sports).
Much of these arguments go back to junior tennis of course. The surface you learn the game on is the surface you are likely to feel most comfortable on throughout your playing days. I believe that clay should be much more a part of junior coaching than it is now; I've also even broached the idea that it would make a lot of sense to have the Easter Bowl played on clay, since it leads more naturally into the ITF clay season than does the USTA National Clay Courts played in July. In any case, I'm a fan of tennis on clay, if only because it seems to demand more versatility than other surfaces. But I'm a fan of grass and hard courts too, for what they can reveal about the game at its highest level. It's just that I'd like to see a few familiar faces late in a big tournament this time of year.
2 comments:
Collette,
I notice you posed a question about clay court training for juniors to Tony Trabert on the Tennis Live on-line site (I presume it was you). Pity he didn’t give a specific answer although I did read his response to be that juniors would benefit from playing more on clay but it doesn't need to be their primary surface and that American players could do better on clay but won't until they commit to playing multiple tournaments (the entire clay circuit)on it, rather than just select ones.
In that regard, he could well have been talking about cricket, a game where the adjustment from one surface to the next is equally significant. While there is always a distinct advantage for the local player/s it certainly hasn’t stopped other countries from winning on surfaces completely foreign to them. That has been achieved not by trying to adopt playing conditions that approximate those of the dominant nation or by altering the teaching of fundamentals (which are fundamental so don’t need changing) but by a willingness to adapt mentally, tactically and technically to the change in conditions (aided by understanding the necessity of preparatory matchplay on the foreign surface). While a player may never fully master the nuances of a foreign surface they should be more than capable of adapting their game to it and winning. The same applies to tennis, as Jim Courier suggested.
Perhaps the French have the best system, albeit a more organic than deliberately structured one, whereby the surface changes from region to region so the requirements of the player change from tournament to tournament. As a result, you have players who can compete equally well on hard, clay and indoor courts. The same does apply to other European players who compete, often out of necessity, on a variety of different surfaces.
Who knows, if the players are willing to spend enough time in Europe they might just pick up some language skills as well. Hmm, perhaps that’s going to be Drucker’s reason why claycourters don’t do well in New York? They seem to do just fine in Melbourne, but I guess that’s another story altogether.
AndrewD
Thanks for the insight although I'll have to take your word for the cricket analogy. It's wonderful to get such a thoughtful comment by someone willing to be identified. My frustration with anonymity is growing; I appreciate knowing how YOU think, Andrewd.
Yes, that was my question to Tony Trabert, and it was frustrating to me that since I sent it in by email, I wasn't able to rephrase it in hopes of getting a real answer the second time.
It seemed as if he was falling in line with the argument I've heard a couple of times in conversations about why we don't do more clay court training. It goes "well, after all there really is only one Slam held on it, (same argument goes for Wimbledon and grass), so we've got to stick with the percentages of hard courts." As if we have a shortage of resources and no interest in any tennis success not tied to one of the Grand Slams.
Obviously not an argument that I'm sympathetic to.
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