Match point

Chapter 1163 Clay Clay Season
Blue sky, white clouds, sea, green mountains.

With just a few strokes, those fresh and clean colors burst out with rich splendor, wandering quietly and peacefully in the emerald blue of the Mediterranean Sea.

Like a paradise.

Steep and rugged cliffs stand facing the sea, lush olive trees and pine trees meander along the coastal road, ivory white stone villages are hidden in clean blue and green, and a corner is still half hidden , The curling smoke adds a little popularity to the quiet scene in front of you.

chug.

A red motorcycle is driving along the road, passing through the green and blue eyes, and you can feel the track of the breeze without reaching out your hands.

Sight, follow the trajectory of the motorcycle and look forward, and then you can see page after page of white sailboats wandering in the emerald green ocean, and yachts docked neatly in the port, like pure white and flawless shells, it seems You can also see people lying on the deck sunbathing.

Lazy and cozy.

The whole world is intoxicating. When you close your eyes, you can feel the brilliance and refreshingness of the sun, mixed with the fishy smell of sea water and the water vapor of the woods.

From one resort to another, it is also surrounded by the ocean, but you can still deeply feel the specialness of the island in front of you.

A kind of tranquility, a kind of idleness, a kind of simplicity and purity isolated from the world.

Clearly, this isn't Miami.

After the Miami Masters, this marks the end of the spring hard court season, and professional tennis officially enters the clay court time.

Under the influence of the comprehensive commercialization of professional tennis, there are more and more hard-court events around the world. Correspondingly, clay courts and grass courts are becoming less and less.

The number of events is one aspect, and even the schedule calendar can be seen——

Throughout the year, only April and May are the clay court seasons, and the grass court season is even more pitiful. There is only one short month in June, and the rest of the time is all hard courts.

Of course, as a traditional tennis court, clay courts are still scattered with low-level events at different times throughout the year. Even in hard court seasons, clay courts can be seen in challenge matches, hope matches or 250-point matches, but this is a minority after all. , from the official arrangement of ATP and WTA:
On red soil, it is only two months; on grassland, it is reduced to one month.

It is precisely because of this that there are more and more players who are good at hard courts, and they firmly occupy the top [-] seats in the world, changing the trend of this sport.

but!

No one can deny that the unique style of clay court and grass court events has always been an integral part of tennis, and it is also a necessary existence to enrich the sport, not only the venue, but also the style of play, game content, confrontation situation, etc. , are all different.

It can be seen from a small detail that the ATP and WTA still encourage the diversity of venues, which is also an important part of retaining the unique style of tennis:

Competition level weight.

Taking the ATP as an example, throughout the year, there are four Grand Slams and nine Masters, which are the highest level of top events.

Four Grand Slams, two on hard court, one on clay court and one on grass court.

Nine Masters events, six hard court events, and three clay court events.Unfortunately, there is no grass—however, the ATP has been discussing the issue of adding a grass masters, and actively promotes it. Despite the difficulties, the ATP has never given up and is struggling to find suitable cities, venues and sponsors.

The three clay court masters are Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome.

In fact, the Rome Masters has been suffering from financial troubles in recent years. Because of Italy’s economic difficulties, the event has never received official support, and even the sponsors are not strong enough, so that the total prize money of the Rome Masters has always been the highest among all Masters. At the bottom, facing many difficulties.

Despite this, ATP has been sponsoring different channels in different ways, hoping to ensure the status of the clay masters and the diversity of tennis courts; at the same time, in just two months of the clay season, there are three masters and one A Grand Slam once again proved the importance of clay.

This year, not only will it be the first time for Gao Wen to compete in clay court and grass court competitions, and officially set foot on another field in the tennis world; it will also be the first time in Gao Wen's career to play in an official clay court competition.

As mentioned before, the biggest reason why hard-court events are blooming everywhere is that the establishment, maintenance, and maintenance of venues are simpler and cheaper. The number of Earth fields is still increasing across the board.

This is the case in North America. Hard courts can be seen everywhere, even in community sports centers; clay and grass, which are more expensive to maintain, are very rare.

To be precise, grass courts do exist in North America, but they are basically private clubs and are not open to the public; in addition, there are a few clay courts in North America——

It should be said that the green clay court is also a clay court, but it is not clay, but green clay.

In the 20s, Henry Alexander Robinson was a tennis court contractor in New York and the sole agent of European clay courts in the United States.

With the growth of experience, he began to look for better and more economical raw material substitutes in the United States. At that time, he found a lot of green gravel waste left after construction in a construction company in Pennsylvania. Robinson ground the waste into fine powder for experimentation , created the first green clay court in Maryland in 1931.

In the beginning, the green clay court was given the name of "pure". First, the color is pure and no dyeing is added at all; second, the performance is stable and balanced, the bounce of tennis balls is more regular, and the running and movement of players are more smooth and free. —compared to grass.

From 1975 to 1977, the U.S. Open once used green clay courts. Among the four Grand Slams, the U.S. Open is also the only event that has used three types of courts: grass, clay, and hard courts.

If the US Open still insists on green soil today, then the four Grand Slams will represent four types of events.

Unfortunately, with the full rise of tennis in the 70s, countless tennis courts sprung up across the North American continent, and green courts enjoyed a short period of time; but then due to high maintenance costs, they were completely replaced by the rise of hard courts in the 80s, and fell down in a blink of an eye. .

At present, the number of green clay tennis courts in the North American continent is not bad, but almost all professional events in North America have abandoned the clay and turned to the embrace of hard courts.

Currently, the only exception is Charleston.

This event, held immediately after the Miami Masters, is still one of the WTA's high-level events, and it still insists on using green courts.

In the ATP Tour, Houston has changed from green clay to clay in recent years, so there are no green clay events in men's events.

It is precisely because of this that when Gao Wen competed in high school and college competitions in North America, he basically played on hard courts, and occasionally practiced on green or clay courts, but he never stood on the official court, not even in NCAA games. Everything was brand new to Gao Wen.

So, after the Miami event, before the Monte Carlo Masters, Gao Wen cleared his schedule and prepared to go to the clay for a good training——

The destination is the small island in front of me, Mallorca.

(End of this chapter)