Is sun setting for clay specialists? - UBITENNIS

Is sun setting for clay specialists?

By Staff
3 Min Read

TENNIS – World number 10 Sara Errani tweeted “Guys, where are all the clay tournaments?” on Thursday. The tweet unsurprisingly followed the beginning of Acapulco’s tournament, where the brand-new hard courts took over the red clay. Is clay going to follow the fate of grass and slowly be confined to a few weeks a year only?

“Guys, where are all the clay tournaments?” Sara Errani, WTA number 10, tweeted this message on February 25th, immediately backed up by a self-explanatory: “They are removing them all! #acapulco #barcellona #budapest #portoroz #palermo.”

The tweet unsurprisingly followed the beginning of Acapulco’s tournament, where the brand-new hard courts took over the red clay that saw Errani winning the last two editions.

The former Roland Garros finalist immediately received the attention of fans as well as the one of fellow tennis players like Taro Daniel, Lourdes Dominguez Lino, Roberta Vinci and Ivan Ljubicic.

Errani, in some of her following replies, made it clear how the situation is extremely penalising for her, as in addition to the fact that clay tournaments are being replaced by hard courts, the few Premiers are played on fairly fast clays.

“I can play only 4 (clay) tournaments,” she tweeted: “Stuttgart (indoor), Madrid (altitude), Rome and Paris.”

Additionally, this year, the traditional pre-slam Premier of Brussels has been replaced by an international in Nuremberg, due to the financial problems of Belgian organizers.

For similar reasons the summer event of Palermo has been moved to Malaysia and the hard courts of Kuala Lumpur, while the WTA international of Katowice decided to convert from clay indoor to hard indoor.

In the past few years other big clay events have disappeared like Berlin and Warsaw, reducing the red-clay season to a handful weeks only.

“And wait for 2015, the list will grow longer…” is the reply of Dominguez Lino, while ironically Ljubicic said: “you can’t wait any longer, you need to become 185cm tall now.”

The former ATP number 3 backed up the Italian adding: “You are right…think that once three slams were played on grass #onlyhardcourtsnow.”

Is clay going to follow the fate of grass and slowly be confined to a few weeks a year only?

It is hard to tell, but clearly the share of points given by hard courts has become extensively bigger and this is also being reflected on the new generations of players, who more often than not look awkward and tentative on the dirt.

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