Blue clay turns the ATP into a whine fest

I’m not usually one for metaphors and colorful parables, but this one was too tempting to pass up. So picture this: you’re an employee at a huge multinational conglomerate, and you’re given a hefty salary, lots of amenities, a voice in the governing policies of the organization, and best of all, you’re made the poster child of the company’s marketing campaigns, which makes you a globally recognized celebrity. Everything is hunky-dory for a while, until the organization slips up, and implements a minor change in its operational system without taking you into consultation. So what do you do in response? Have a quiet, dignified conversation with your bosses about the rare break in communication, or go to the media and lambaste the evil, unjust ways of your company for the whole world to hear? The answer is as plain as plain can get. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, at least not in public.

Now replace yourself with Novak Djokovic (or Rafael Nadal), and assume that your employer is the ATP, whose only discretion has been allowing Ion Tiriac, the organizer of the Madrid Masters, to change the color of the claycourts from red to blue. Would you look at this act by the ATP as an unforgivable sin that warrants a graphic, colorfully-worded denunciation of every single aspect that’s wrong with the move? You might think I’m exaggerating, but Djokovic certainly spared no words when he decided to express his feelings about the blue clay of Madrid after his first match there yesterday. The World No. 1 said that playing on the blue clay “was not tennis”. He also said that the court was so slippery that there were only two ways it would be possible for him to play on the surface: either he would have to put on football shoes, or he would have to take tips from Chuck Norris (for the uninitiated, Chuck Norris is Hollywood’s version of Rajnikant) on how to play there. Yes, that’s a hilarious quote, but how amused do you think the ATP honchos would be at hearing such an open vilification of their decision-making abilities?

Djokovic didn’t stop there. “Center court is impossible to move on. I hit five balls throughout the whole match. With everything else, I was just trying to keep the ball in the court”, he fumed. Now get this – the Serb actually managed to hit 20 winners in the match. So apart from the ‘five balls’ that he hit in the match, did the remaining 15 winners result from his efforts to ‘just keep the ball in the court’? Wow – if that’s true, his opponent Daniel Gimeno-Traver must have been one lousy opponent. And Djokovic still wasn’t finished with his disparaging comments about the surface. ”When you slide on the red clay you have a feeling you can stop and recover from that step. But here, whatever you do … you are always slipping. Not a single player – not woman not man – I didn’t hear anyone say ‘I like blue clay”’, he went on.

He may have been right with that last line. Djokovic is certainly not the only player to have complained about the blue clay. Rafael Nadal, who is in danger of being dubbed ‘serial complainer’ because of his long list of publicly-expressed complaints about everything from his knees to the ATP schedule, obviously couldn’t resist taking a dig (or two or three) at Ion Tiriac’s radical innovation. In fact, Nadal seemed so eager to declare his unhappiness with the surface that words seemed to be rushing out of his mouth that he couldn’t possibly have meant. The Spaniard said that while the problems are the same for every player, “the court benefits some players who are more powerful, who don’t have footwork so defined, players like (John) Isner, (Milos) Raonic, or (Roger) Federer—it’s a court that rewards the serve more than usual.” Yep, you read that right: Nadal actually said that Federer’s footwork is not ‘defined’. Clearly, blue clay has gotten into the players’ heads.

But even if it has, there are better ways to highlight the issue than to spout off one negative remark after another to the media. Reading a new comment everyday by a top player blasting the tournament has turned the whole viewing experience into a unpleasant exercise for most watchers. When I first caught a glimpse of balls whizzing by on the blue clay, I immediately felt that the surface made for better, clearer viewing than watching a match on a regulation red claycourt (which, for the record, was the main aim of the organizers behind making the change). But now, when I switch on the TV and start watching a match with the players’ comments at the back of my mind, I’m more worried about whether one or both of the players are going to slip, fall and injure themselves than about the score or the possibility of an upset. When I see a player lose, I try to estimate how much his discomfort with the surface contributed to his sub-par performance. And when I see a player erupt with joy after winning a close, hard-fought battle, I wonder whether the win, on a surface that apparently doesn’t even qualify as a claycourt, counts at all. Trust me, that is not how a tennis tournament is supposed to be experienced.

The ATP has a Player Council in place, and the players are free to express their views in that council through their representatives. Djokovic claims that the players weren’t taken into confidence by the ATP before making the decision to test the blue courts this year. Call me daft, but it seems to me that if Djokovic wanted to highlight the lack of communication between the ATP and the players, a meeting in the Player Council, behind closed doors, would have been the best place to do so. That way, not only would the matter have got the attention it deserved, but it would have also avoided leaving the ATP top brass with a PR-disaster of an event on their hands. Throwing fits and tantrums the way the players have done not only smacks of unprofessionalism, it also makes the ATP and Ion Tiriac look bad. A discerning tennis follower would know that the latter couldn’t possibly have been the intention of the dissenting players, but considering how heavily casual tennis followers outnumber the hardcore fans, that isn’t saying much.

Surprisingly, the female players don’t seem to have as many problems with the surface as their male counterparts. The closest any high-profile WTA player came to criticizing the blue courts was when Victoria Azarenka said that the bounce was ‘different’ on the court. She did go on to echo Djokovic’s comments by saying that nobody asked the players their opinion before going in for the switch, but then added, with an air of no-nonsense dignity, that it was not her place to judge, and that everyone should just drop the topic. Maria Sharapova sat serenely on the fence when she said there were many different things that the players had to adjust to, and conceded that the switch was more for show than for the players. Venus Williams called the switch a ‘fashion statement’, and wished that she had thought of something like that herself. Clearly, there has been a distinct sense of restraint and caution, a “let’s-wait-and-watch” approach, in the way the women have reacted to the surface.

In recent years, the WTA as a group have been widely derided and decried for their failure to match the male players in terms of competitiveness and spectator-worthy play. But in this case, the ATP players would really do themselves, the ATP and the tennis world in general a huge favor by taking a few tips on professionalism and class from the women. I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly heard enough whining about blue clay to last me a lifetime.

The last word, as it so often is, belongs to Serena Williams. “It’s fine”, she said of the blue clay. “I could play on ice if I have to”. Message to the men: learn a thing or two from Serena Williams. Stop whining and just get on with the game.