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In 2012, one of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world decided to change the color of their tennis courts from its signature red clay... to blue; a decision that would go down in infamy as one of the BIGGEST blunders in modern tennis history! Today on CULT TENNIS, we'll go over the entire story of how blue clay came to be... and how it failed miserably.
CULT TENNIS brings you player profiles and analyzes some of the best stories in the world of Tennis! Subscribe to see more content like this, and thank you for stopping by!
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What's your take on Blue Clay? I vote we bring back some new wacky surface color for 2021!
I might be misunderstanding but doesn't the failure of this blue clay really come down to poor drainage and wacky weather in the end? If they didn't play a part, couldn't it in theory have played the same as red clay (apart from the salt factor)?
@@BenosTDG I was thinking the same thing. Strip away those factors and blue clay would probably have given the players the same experience. I think change is a hard thing to accept in tennis, imo
Changing the court from green to blue to increase the contrast with the ball made sense in the case of hard courts. I didn’t quite understand why Tiriac would do the same with clay. You forgot to mention balls used to be white and being able to see a white ball on green surface was no harder than seeing a white ball on red clay. Why not go back to white balls instead?
Only acceptable as long as the surface is not only safe enough, but also conditions are similar enough to the Slam it builds towards. It would make more sense to have such a modified slippery surface right before Wimbledon rather than French Open. Overall, safety is the number one priority.
@@cachi-7878 changing the color of the ball actually makes a lot more sense in this case. Since the surface for clay is somewhat of an orange red color, the best contrast would be somewhere between blue and green. White also makes sense. Whether that would visually appeal to viewers is a different story.
So let me get this straight: the court had poor drainage and particularly bad rain followed by hot sun which baked the clay, then they tried to use salt to get rid of the moisture, and that became a slippery surface on top of the clay... and people think it was because the clay was blue?
blue = water = wet/slippery yes, people really are that dumb. red = hot = dry. so they think red is superior...
The salt had to be used because if it wasn't, the color would've washed out. That's the problem, not the color as such.
Right I was thinking the same thing, and changes had to be made to the material as well, so it wasn't even technically the same material to begin with.
Did you watch the video?
@@ComandanteJ It wasn't clear, dude. Even if he watched the whole thing.
I don’t even play tennis, but this appeared in my recommended for some reason, I still watched it...
Same. I've never even searched for Tennis on KZhead in my life.
I clicked because the thumbnail really intrigued me
My late dad is a tennis player himself and he often watches tennis matches on TV. I remember how he comments about Federer's over-the-top screams and celebrations. Ngl I feel like I'm being watched now.
lmfao same
even if you did youtube wouldnt kno- wait its owned by google, nvm they most likely would yh crazy coincidence for you
After all that, I’ve come to the conclusion there was nothing wrong with blue clay. It was the crap sub surface and drainage, and the stupid idea of chucking salt on it to help dry it.
got to laugh at them banning it, its like banning red painted walls because the first time they tried painting a wall red the building collapsed because the concrete was poorly constructed and an earthquake hit.
I mean with red clay they wouldn't even have had the need to salt it, just wait without the fear of the pigment washing off. Also it's much more easily available and cheaper so it's really just a gimmick change that didn't pan out.
So I just watched a tenis match in Australia 2022 that had blue clay (Ashleigh Barty v Amanda Anisimova) so I guess this video is wrong anyway
@@yorkshirepud5340 That´s not clay... that is regular hard court.
it sounds like what they should have baned was putting salt on a clay court
Seems to me that if they had flooding and insane heat, regular clay would have similar issues.
Yes. The drainage system appears to be the real culprit, but that's under the blue clay... and don't have video of that.
@Bender Bending Rodriguez The salt was used to draw away moisture and preserve the color WHICH HAPPENED TO BE BLUE. Would have been the same with red.
@Bender Bending Rodriguez the clay can most definitely lose its color overtime. whiles its probably slower than the died blue clay the iron oxide would still be washed away overtime all the same
The blue colorant was the culprit there, but I assume with more research and engineering using modern technology, it could be made to be almost exactly identical to regular clay.
@@davemiller6055 I'm not sure about that because the colorant for blue Clay is different from iron oxide which is already built into the bricks that the clay is made from. But just because they used salt that year, doesn't mean there wasn't another way to keep that clay dry that wouldn't have made the surface slippery.
I mean... it actually sounds like a perfectly good idea... same playing properties (in theory) and easier to watch. Sounds like the extreme heatwave, poor drainage, and salt application were the real downfall.
yes we have to bring it back!
@@CULTTENNIS You didn't really mention that in the video tho... You spoke about how all the players were complaining but you didn't ever say that the blue clay was a fine substitute for regular clay. I think everybody inferred what @WE ARE TEMPORARY said, but you never say in the video that poor circumstance is the only reason blue clay isn't currently used
Andrew Fink the actual construction and the weather ‘ruined’ the tournament and then some players decided to throw their dummies out of the pram. A poor court not poor clay made it a bit of a struggle. Imo this wasn’t a balanced analysis of the issues at all.
Reah everything seems to be chalked up to the clay when really the only explanation given was weather and court construction.
I think that you are underestimating the importance of color in a surface which is exposed to the sun for several hours. I don't know for sure what exactly caused the differences between the blue and normal clay, but color shouldn't be Tamed for granted. It would be interesting to see some kind of tests between them tho
Grass doesn't become orange? Clearly they haven't seen my lawn during the summer time LoL 😂
Haha nice one
That was hilarious!!! Mine lawn too during summer.. 🤣
Hahahaha they have lawncare they don’t know about it lol
I like to keep mine soft and green for the summer orgies.
You guys have lawns?
I don’t play tennis and have no idea why YT recommended this but great job in making it interesting cause I had a great time learning about poorly drained clay being shaft because of its color.
Same I think it’s funny a whole bunch of people who know next to nothing about tennis me included now have a strong opinion on blue clay 😂 can’t wait to run into some tennis fanatic who hates blue clay.
By the sound of it, it wasn't an issue with the actual blue clay, but with the weather, the court, and the methods used to maintain the court in said weather. Someone please bring blue clay back!
Honestly I dont see any issue. Different players had different success on different surface. It is still the same for everyone so sucks for you if you cant adapt.
They used salt to stop the dye from being washed out which caused it to become slippery. The rust which makes the red cant be washed out so you never need to salt on a red clay court.
@@zemzuta7887 The salt was also used to keep moisture away. If red clay had endured the same weather conditions, would they not have used salt then?
@@comicaltuber Probably not, they still play with the same drainage and the clay has not been a problem ever since they changed it back.
Federer, the undisputed king of Blue Clay
Hahahahh. Great comment
Forever!!! :)
Has a nice ring to it :)
Fed doesn't even care the color. He proved who the winner is in the totally new sit. Fed, the true GOAT not just a king of any specific court surface.
d0s25 Both Nadal and Djokovic are better than him
Tennis Players: "I hate blue clay. It gets hard and rough and you slip everywhere."
That joke seems a little Forced.
Red clay is clearly the High Ground.
you wanna buy some blue clay?!? you dont want to sell me blue clay... i dont wanna sell you blue clay you want to go home and rethink your vanity project
Fuckin genius
that's what she said
Man, you're an awesome tennis historian. I played back in the day, even though I don't follow tennis as much as I used to, its fun to hear from people like you. Adding in humor makes it so much better. I've binged your videos right now, with this being my 3rd.
I met mr. Tiriac quite a few times-wow he is intimidating when you first meet him- just the way he speaks and holds himself..but he is truly a kind man
I don't even watch tennis but this got recommended randomly so here's a like
Right. Lmao
Me too
Same
Same
Same
Blue clay objectively looks better. Great contrast between ball and court. It’s a shame that factors totally unrelated to color got it banned...
They could always change the color of the ball
it just seems like an unecessary problem
“Objectively looks better” Hilarious
Naw you trippin
@JohnnyBlackRants You sound like any typical pool player, but then the best pool player I ever met was a pro tennis player before he left Highschool. He's pretty despicable.
I remember seeing highlights of the 2012. Madrid open on ESPN. That’s what opened me open to events outside of the grand slams. Up to that point I had no idea they had a full season of other tournaments. That Blue Clay made me really wanna see more tournaments and that’s what got me to follow the sport closer
Through all these years, no one has thought of or experiented with changing the color of tennis balls to make it a better contrast to the red clay courts that players prefer? What about experienting with dyes & other additives to red clay that doesn't involve the expensive bleaching process?
...oh yeah
As a tennis player, the neon yellow is the best for seeing the ball. It would be a hard and annoying adjustment for it to be any other color. And I find it hard to think of another color that is as striking as the neon yellow
It sounds like blue clay was only tried once, ,disdained immediately by some top players for purely aesthetic reasons, and had its first attempt spoiled by other variables, such as weather, drainage, and salt.
It's also a solution in search of a problem. Changing from green to blue improved the viewing experience. But clay already contrasts well, there was no reason to change it other than a gimmick.
I didn't look into it, just getting information from the video. It sounds like color wasn't the issue. It was the salt, but they only used the salt for it because they wanted to protect the color. If it was normal red clay, they don't need to salt it. Ultimately the process of preserving the color gave certain type of players a lot more advantage. If red clay without the salt, giving that much advantage, it would resulting clay surface entirely ban. I do think, they should try to give the blue clay a chance in a indoor facility (I am not sure if indoor uses clay)
@@joehernandez9563 Except that it didn't contrast as well as blue did. Your comment is a designation searching for an uncatagorized situation.
@@brahtrumpwonbigly7309 the normal red clay did contrast well
@@joehernandez9563 So? What the hell, its a color. If it looks different, who cares, besides ass holes? This is a joke and tennis should be embarrassed by it.
The color actually had nothing to do with it, it just was the weather and poor maintenence
the removal of the iron oxide likely played a factor as well
@@Butcho22 no
pulsar_ not at all
@@Butcho22 Based on absolutely zero evidence. If we're going to blame the blue clay, we should at the very least do some test instead of listening to players that began to complaining even before the tournament started. Pretty close minded of them, if you ask me.
@Cuck cloo That is not what he said, the salt was in an effort to reduce moisture, it had nothing to do with the color of the clay.
The TV at my gym has been playing tennis matches lately and I always see the blue court and think of this video
It's intriguing how the colour of the surface has been correlated with the performance of said surface, even though the two are unrelated. If the proponent of Blue clay ensured excellent performance of his blue-coloured surface compared to traditional playing fields, Blue Clay may have been upheld as the superior tennis play surface as opposed to the inferior one.
They are related because to change the color you have to change how the clay performs: They change the properties of the clay to make it blue, so the ball bounces different and the players have trouble maintaining balance, affecting the performance of the players.
@@totetoresano and the ball bounces differently on grass and hard courts, so why would a slightly different type make a difference? The bad move was the salt. That's it.
@@totetoresano go buy some more brain cells.
@@scottg3192 The ball bounces differently on those courts yes, but ultimately that means there's only three broad compositions that players need to be familiar with. I'm unsure if you're the kind of person to follow esport's, but its a situation that comes up in that more than traditional sports due to how mutable the games in it can be. Prior to the world tournaments in games like league of legends, if the patch it is played on has significant changes, then players and teams who were better at the style of play in regular season might fall off. Blue clay, without iron oxide is a less robust clay mixture, more prone to being affected by weather changes, which necessitated the need for salt. There is a reason why every other year with normal clay they did not run into these issues. And if you forgive me for completing this nerd as fuck explanation, that affected the meta of the game, it changed the way the tennis players had to play . Which meant that aggressive players were at an advantage comparatively to defensive players. This is especially exacerbated by the fact the salt crystalized after the practice on the court a week prior, which meant that they had a very short amount of time to adjust. Its just bad practice especially in a major tournament.
"Blue clay is exactly the same as red clay but blue" Smooth-brain Tennis players: "Blue clay bad red clay good"
"Exactly the same" yet doesn't have the same chemical composition. Strange that.
@Vingul . The problems the players had could have happened with red clay, namely the salt crystallization and weather hard packing the surface. The colour dye vs the red oxide had no bearing on the court performance, it was Just a colour they were used to.
London is built on Blue Clay, great to tunnel through. Don't know if it's any good for bashing balls around on though. PS: Though called blue it's more of a dark grey colour.
@@Vingul found the smoothbrain lol
@@fakename287 xD xD grugbrains of the world unite bro dude xD
This is Federer's best title in his career. He was the only guy that wasn't bitching about the surface and just played as usual lmao
Federer just wants to play at this point
@MUFC There are only 194 countries on this planet (so no, soccer isn't massive in over 240 countries). It is still the most popular sport. Next after that is cricket (by number of people watching and playing).
@MUFC Literally no one fucking asked
@MUFC first of all it’s called football. and football fans like you make us fans look bad when it comes to subjects on other sports, just fucking zip your mouth and keep watching your trash ass mufc
@@kevinrodriguez2889 its called both soccer and football my guy. But I agree lol ManU trash
Bravo its people like him who push forward new ideas. Could have worked but it didnt. More people like him please
Apart from the toughness of playing on blue clay, it actually visually looks really beautiful and eye catching 🔵 👌🏼
So: faced with a texture problem, ATP bans a color. That's some 4D tennis right there.
When clay was not used properly, but the color was banned
it was banned because how hard it was to keep the color uniform after a hard rain. The rust color is baked in, so it stays uniform. The blue was (according to a documentary outside this video) top coated and Not Baked in. So they had to oversalt the court to keep the color from washing away. Then the sun baked the slurry and the salt became little impregnated rollers in the clay. It's less the color and the extreme lengths needed to keep that color put and even then it failed as you can see the dye on the uniforms of the players after a few matches on it. If they had access to Blue Bricks to crush, then the color would have been less a hassle to keep in the clay since the clay itself would be blue through out. But I'm only going with information from that documentary that shown how the clay was made step by step and the problems arising from it.
@@JackDesert I wish this was more explicitly stated in the video, he glossed over it and basically made it sound like people just didn't like blue clay for its color.
The problem wasn't the color itself. It's the fact that, since blue clay doesn't occur naturally and needs to be dyed, rain and watering will wash away the color over time, so you need to take measures to prevent certains parts of a blue clay court from gradually becoming white, and this will inevitably change the composition of the surface. That's what happened in Madrid. In the US, green clay courts are quite popular. It doesn't need to be dyed since green clay is not actually "clay" but a greenish type of naturally occuring basalt, which is already slightly harder and thus, slightly faster than traditional red clay. But the difference isn't big enough to force players to radically change their playstyle, just requires some practice to adapt. With all the measures needed to prevent dyed blue clay from losing its color, under harsh weather conditions the surface becomes a lot harder and faster than even the hardest green clay courts and at the same time becomes a lot more slippery than a clay court usually is. This fundamentally changes how clay tennis is played, which is something that nobody really wants.
then some idiot accuses others of being smooth brained and not doing research. hypocrite lmao
When you think about it, it’s cool how this blue clay caused a meta shift for the game 🤔
i think it was more like the equivalent of the nba playing on a wet court......
That's kind of what I was thinking. A way to see how adaptive and resilient a player is.
Should change the meta shift intentionally by moving on red clay and blue clay court by random every game
Of course Federer won that tournament, he's the most smart and adaptive tennis player
@@mangekyuby7940 well no it’s because the salt used to keep it blue during rain solidified and turned to almost a hard court slippery court which help Federer’s game a lot, now does it sound like a fun surface yes but not for Madrid
As someone whos never heard of clay courts and doesn't follow tennis at all, blue looks way better. Sounds like people were just being babies and decided they didn't like it before they even played on it, then when bad weather caused an issue everything was blamed on the new color that they were looking for an excuse to get rid of in the first place. Ridiculous.
Damn the opening background song is what dank pods use for testing songs
If the issue was not being able to see the balks on green courts, Why not just change the color of the balls? Seems like a cheaper and more sensible alternative.
Thinking the same. Red balls on a green surface would be the best contrast
@@Crick1952 not for me lol
Tennis players probably won't stand the move, since they've trained their eyes to follow the yellow ball.
@@Crick1952 thats racist towards a specific kind of color blind people and all dogs
I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it has to do with the player's perspective. Changing the ball color might make it easier to follow on a top-down camera, but harder for the players to follow from their POV. No clue, though, that's just a guess.
So the poor drainage and weather and salt caused problems and everyone blamed it on the colour of the clay??
Shreyas Misra - they were complaining about the color before the matches even began. They were all bias against the color and blamed the loss on it.
@Shreyas Misra I have to admit: I watched the full video but also didn't hear they used the salt in order to keep the color. 🤷
@@JelleDeLoecker 5:16 - 5:22
@@gujwdhufjijjpo9740 well yeah like they all said "clay is red lmao what's next blue grass?"
@Shreyas Misra in the video says that, yeah, but they don't give any reason why it wasn't going to happen if it were red, bc first, the iron oxide don't change the surface, b they really used the salt to drain faster the surface, bc if it were to don't lose the color it going to happen anyway, and they can use other solution to make it without it going to be crystallized...
Here’s the weird thing - I don’t play tennis? I don’t even really CARE about Tennis? But I’ve been seeing this in my recommendations, and now I’ve started binging your videos, because I have a genuine fascination for the interesting minutiae of niche subjects I haven’t really been involved with before, and your presentation style has made this look into a world I wouldn’t normally be interested in both entertaining and enlightening! I always love to hear from people who are well-researched and passionate about their field, whatever it is, and I think after this I may pay attention to the sport a bit more! ^w^
I'd love to see blue clay come back, sounds like they should give it another chance and see how it goes if properly maintained.
"how much time you got?" He asks, more than halfway into the video.
Yeah, he could cut the bio on Tiriac down to 1/10th of what it is and I don't think anyone would complain.
Yeah there’s literally only 3m45s left, so yeah not long
@@Zeuts85 Thfiriac*
How much time you got? *Looks at timeline* oh I’d say about 2 minutes lol
@@Zeuts85 I didn't mind learning about Tiriac, he put in his research so why not?
Rafa was happy with the models tho
Nadal’s eyes were really focused when he was resting on the bench
I was too, tbh
Everyone was, except for ugly, bitter feminist control freaks.
Dang right. I don't see why it's a problem, how is it sexist? They are frigging models for crying out loud, it's what they WANT to do. Sure, those other ballkids miss out but on the other hand the models miss out if they don't get the gig!
Your profile pic is perfect for this comment
Very nice video editing! It's a beautiful video, honestly.
Bro I love your videos they’re so good
Petition to make tennis courts out of marble tiles and soapy water should be added on top of it 👇
Aside from all the injuries, it would probably be boring af since every player would just go for aces and win them
Im down to test that for you
@@jc-fx3rp Long rackets
Or, get this, remove the courts and have the players use jetpacks
Petition to keep tennis how it is, but just release 50 crocodiles onto the court before every match.
i relly liked that blue clay tho. looked so pretty!
Agreed!
Yes, too bad it didn't work out...
It was like looking at techdecks on blue marble
@@CULTTENNIS im not 100% sure but isnt there a green clay turnament??
Yeah
I don’t know jack about Tennis but still watched to the end. Amazing video and even better creator🙏🏾
That was an excellent video! I never thought I'd subscribe to a tennis channel XD
Why am I watching this, I don't even care about Tennis.
you literally made me close the video because i realized that i also don't care about tennis
You right
This was recommended to me and I have never searched tennis on KZhead or Google before
Yes, why are you?
Nobody cares about tennis
I really like the look of that blue clay. However they should have put some thought into how well it would perform under use.
Cool basic observation
It will perform exactly the same as any other clay. Apparently tennis players, and the organizers are q bunch of sh*t for brains morons though.
They should make a video on it
When one of the tennis plays talked about playing on blue grass I only thought of boise state lol
@Steve N it does
I think it was great trying. And this story tells a lot regarding who's the most intelligent tennis player, the guy that can do everything on any surface and speak any language ^^
One of the all time greatest thumbnails in the history of KZhead. Boosted views by 100x+
Well researched, and well presented. Good stuff man, we need more content like this!
More to come!
Couldn't agree more, very well researched :) always wanted to know why they changed it to blue clay.. thank you so much for giving insight into this :)
Correct!
Also plexicushion
That was very informative and entertaining.
I'd like to see the world burn, let's make a mossy tennis court.
Ou God
Yes but what about... blue mossy courts
@@san_juanito NOW WE'RE FREAKIN TALKIN BAYBEE
I like the idea of ice courts
Watch out I also want tennis with ice skates instead of tennishoes
These videos must take a lot of time to put together. I find them really interesting even though I'm not much of a tennis fan.
Lord knows how I ended up on tennis KZhead but man is just using every dankpods tune in the book!
So lemme get this straight: Nadal didn't win on this clay so they banned it
Basically...yes. Him and Djokovic cried and cried and cried. The moment offensive players started winning matches and making the later stages of clay events, it was changed.
@randomguy8196 And it wasn't the blue clays fault, it's the poor drainage and salt
@@kwl189 lol it wasnt clay,it wasnt tennis,it was impossible to move on it and not only Nadal and Djokovic hated the surface,it was just non tennis and weird
@@sebkosk 😂 couldn’t have been that hard to move on it. The tournament went ahead and players had long rallies on it. Nobody cried more than those two.
@@kwl189 lol even Roger wasnt happy about that,its just nonsense thats why it was banned :)
This is one of those times where someone could easily say "what was that dude thinking?" but honestly I feel bad for him. His heart is absolutely in the right place, it is just really unfortunate that it culminated in a bad experience when all he was trying to do was make the tournament more unique and easily viewable.
It wasnt his fault, but sometimes you gamble and lose
It was wrong place wrong time the color wasn’t the problem it was the weather
TheThreatenedSwan TheThreatenedSwan exactly. I’m surprised he didn’t have scientific tests run on the blue clay to prove that the players were just tricking each other into blaming the color of the clay for the poor surface condition and thus their performance. If I’m going to invest into something like that then at the very least I’d try to make an appeal to ATP regarding an undeserved ruling on blue clay if not taking legal action against ATP. but that’s not to take away from the fact that despite investing in a concept like blue clay there was seemingly no attempt made towards better maintenance of the court surface. Seems a tad half-baked either way you look at it but then again I’m not the one investing the money and resources so who am I to really say.
Man, what a montage you've done👏👏
I know nothing about tennis. Finally someone added ice physics, when do we get spike pits and jump pads
Why YES KZhead algorithm, I am interested in blue clay on tennis courts...
One of the most random recommended videos that I still decided to watch😭😭😭 guess they know more than we credit them for
OGdienomyte850 Haha! KZhead knows me better than I know myself
Tennis really needs more of those crazy ideas
Agreed!
Uncle Vee speaking of blue clay, I had a crazy idea for a tennis court. Have one tennis court be four different surfaces at the same time. Similar to that grass and clay court that Federer and Nadal played on back over a decade ago. One quarter would be grass, one quarter hard court, one quarter blue clay and one quarter red clay and have the blue clay and blue hard court at a diagonal from one another to make the colors look cool (and then of course the red of the clay and the green of the grass and the other parts of the court) but yea just had this idea a couple weeks back lol who knows if it would work and I’m sure would be super expensive but I’d like to see them try something like this. And I’m right there with you that they need to keep trying new different crazy ideas and court surfaces, etc.
@@AnthonyHirsch The problem is that different surfaces require different types of shoes.
@@darrenjohn8524 And it would also drive the players nuts
@@15Stratos ya good point. top seeds might bite the blue dust early on.
0:01 no matter where I go the song, this song follows me...
dank pods
The first 90 seconds gave me depression already. Dude could not only play ice hockey, tennis and table tennis on a professional level but also made a career in banking and build an empire as a side gig
I can sleep 14 hours a day. everyday. now that's an accomplishment.
Anakin’s head would’ve exploded if he had encountered blue sand.
"YOU TURNED CLAY AGAINST ME!!! I HATE YOU!" (Rafakin to the Romanian banker)
"It's hard and slippery...just like we could be if you catch my drift"
It's coarse, rough, and irritating, and it get's everywhere.
So lemme get this straight: a drainage problem and extreme weather occurred, but everyone just starts bitching about the clay...
You conveniently forgot the part where they added loads of salt which made it slippery.
@@johnmartinez7440 it made it slippery because of extreme weather. Also, that just says that salt was the problem, not the clay colour.
@@mbartelsm The salt was added so that the color wouldn't drain away. Reminder that red clay is naturally red due to the iron content, so it wouldn't need the salt. Blue clay had the color added artificially, so salt needed to be added to preserve it
@@dragoxphere3341 The salt was added so that the clay would keep out moisture. It's important to keep out moisture to keep the clay blue. But it's not necessary to use salt. They had a water drainage system, but it was shitty.
@@johnmartinez7440 Which they added the salt because of the drainage problem. Again, still not the clay.
*comes in in a wind blown cloak* the algorithm and insomnia has led me here. You shall be remembered at my next cocktail party
A challenging surface, but all players faced the same challenge, and the GOAT was the master of it.....and never complained.
"There are three court surfaces" Green Clay and Carpet: "Are we a joke to you?"
Yes
I have played on tarmac and indoor wooden courts too - but i think there are only 3 surfaces used professionally.
@@timeluster Green Clay is still used in one WTA tournament. It's only a Premier 470 but it's still a top tour level event. Carpet was used until 2018 on the top levels, still used at Challenger level.
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Nice, do you know which one? I guess it plays pretty similar to red clay.
@@timeluster Charleston Open. The clay is made from Amphibolite rather than red brick. It results in a sort of bottle green colour that slightly harder and faster than Red Clay, but it still scuffs and spins like a clay court.
“I’ll go to sleep early tonight” Me at 4 am:
Holy fuck its 4:04 here
lmao i'm reading this at 4:06...I don't even watch tennis man what am I even doing here
Damn it 3 45 here!!!😂 And I was planning to sleep early too😂
I see this video in my recommended videos once a month, today….I watch it
Holy fuck is that the Dankpods headphone testing music in the intro? Bruh 4:10 he's still using Dankpods wtf
blue clay looks so cool, damn you to whoever built that drain system!
Why didn’t they just change the ball to neon orange when playing in a green court?
That would be too cheap and simple
Indeed, In cricket when game shifted from test to one day (day and night) format. They didn't changed the whole playground's colour. Instead, they changed the cricket ball's colour from red to white.
I know , right ? Mind blown .
Wouldn’t pink balls be better for a green court? But I agree with the general premise.
@@Joenah5 Thise would be really bad for people with colour blindness
A lot of commenters seem to be missing some key points in this controversy: - First, as pointed out, Red Clay is MUCH cheaper to create and mantain. - Secondly, Red Clay doesn't have the need to be "fast-dried" as it doesn't lose colouration, thus avoiding the salt issue entirely. - And Third, it didn't even make the audience watchability that much better... so it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe I'm also a bit of a purist because I was raised on clay courts, but I like the fact that each main surface has a defining colour. I wouldn't be opposed to indoor coloured clay courts though.
Im going to be honest with you, I have no idea why I have watched the whole video till the very end. I dont play nor watch tennis, yet I somehow ended up watching the whole thing.
So basically, the color didn't matter at all, it's the weather and weather prevention methods that fucked it all up
No. It's the salt they used to prevent the colour change
@@mic-shellcrackson3800 That's not what it was for, where did you hear that?
Fritz Jackson did you watch the video? They used salt to prevent the colour to change into white since it's dyed clay. The colour will fade if it gets wet so they used salt to make sure it doesn't fade.
@@mic-shellcrackson3800 so the rain and heat wave had no effect what-so-ever then or are we just going blame the salt used?
@@mic-shellcrackson3800 They also used it to keep the court dry. Anyway, the problem wasn't the color of the clay, but weather prevention methods. Switch methods and there wouldn't have been any issues.
I feel like it was Federer's mindset that helped him win.
I think it was all about mindset, I’ve played basketball in shoes that are flatter than a sheet of plywood. Sure I nearly rolled my ankle trying to stop a couple of times but I was still my beastly self on defense.
Well, It also has to do with Gameplay. Grass IS the slipperiest court and Federer IS an ace in grass. But yeah, he's also very versatile
Not, there is a reason why Federer was better in grass than clay. Is not only about the mind, the physical conditions determines your chances of winning.
Surfaces impact the speed of the bounce...and how players move. It changes the dynamic of a match enough to give a group, with a certain playing style, a big advantage. Federer's attacking playing style benefits from a faster court. While Nadal is the opposite. He benefits, significantly, from a slower court. Clay is a slow court.
In the video itself they say the conditions of blue clay favoured the playstyle of Federer, it's not his mindset, surely all players had given it a try
I can't stop thinking about DankPods with that first background piece
Great video, very well done 👍🏻
I don’t watch tennis, I’ve never played tennis, yet here I am.
the boybrutus same
The censoring greedy a$$ yootoob thanks you.
@@kellyt5341 How is it censoring and greedy? What
Ok, but I feel like this is less of blue clay’s fault and more the fault of the weather. I mean could theoretically the same thing happen on red clay?
No. What ruined the playability of the courts was adding salt to the courts so that the blue dye in the clay didn't bleed out. This wouldn't be necessary with red clay that is naturally colored.
@@jarrettpeeples9745 Why not just use non-soluble dye?
@@nathangamble125 cause no one wanted to see the cursed blue clay again hahahha.... If the King of Clay was disrupted by this, it must be very unattractive.
@@jarrettpeeples9745 you're picking on a single issue. The salt was added to dry the court AND to protect the color. Seems like they may have tried the salt anyway. Using salt to absorb moisture on a court is what should be banned it seems
@@TheEnoEtile they used to salt to try to keep moisture of the court BECAUSE it was going to ruin the color.
I honestly have 0 interest in tennis on most fronts, but man this video pulled me in. Kudos man.
Unexpectedly faster court benefits Federer in one tournament: "never do this again, ever, banned from existing" Slower courts overall benefit Nadal and Djokovic over more than ten years: "Federer fans are just salty, courts aren't slower, weak era champ"
Well it’s true Novak and Rafa fans have to accept that the atp literally slows the courts so that they can dominate. There’s no longer 3 surfaces it’s red, blue and green clay.
You realise Djokovics best tournament is Australian Open, by far the fastest of all major tournaments. Faster courts benefit Djokovic more than anyone else. Thats why he suddenly won AO in 2008 when it suddenly became way faster. Grass courts like Wimbledon are not faster than all hard courts, thats a myth. Some hard courts like Paris Shanghai and AO are way faster than any grass court
@@tennisslams9363 again, djokovic is better on fast courts than slow courts. AO is significantly faster than wimbledon and has sped up a lot since 2007
@@vincenzofranchelli2201 I don’t know how you came to that conclusion, Wimbledon is easily the fastest slam. Coming in and saying that Australian open is faster and that Wimbledon being faster is a myth doesn’t make it any less wrong. US and Australia vary in speed and if the Australian courts are quicker the difference is minimal, many times it has been said that the US is in fact faster than Australia. It also doesn’t make sense why Djokovic has been winning so many Wimbledons lately even though it was a quicker surface 10 years ago then it is now.
@@tennisslams9363 thats just wrong searh it yourself ao is faster than wimbledon
4:11 “Grass doesn’t become orange, it would be all strange.” No one tell this man that brown is a shade of orange.
ok but ur not gonna tell someone their fine if their blood is hot pink
@@user-sb4fd3jt3w danganronpa: *sweats*
@@Kawn0 Monokuma rings the school's bell.
he's obviously never seen a Bronco's game lmao
Brown grass?
The issues in 2012 with blue clay could’ve also happened on red clay, the color seems insignificant.
Nope. As one fellow commenter said, they used salt to keep clay blue. It wouldnt happen if it was red.
@@vetrix215 You didn't hear what was said about the salt. It was used as a desiccant to try and dry up the moisture that accumulated. The pigment had nothing to do with the way the surface ended up.
@@gothnate If you actually listen to him the reason they had to get rid of the moisture was to keep the colour, if it had been red they would not have had to add salt
@@gothnate ok. Clay was blue because it was dyed. They added salt to keep it blue since otherwise, it would just turn white and to avoid that they added salt so moisture is drawn out and clay can keep its colour. Red clay is just a crushed brick as he said and they don't lose colour therefore they wouldn't use salt if it was red. Same would have happened if it was any other colour that was dyed. It is not well explained in the video but that is why they did it.
SP - your right! They banned it because the court got wet so the losing players complained and blamed the loss on the color of the ground.
I didn’t think I would find something interesting that I couldn’t care less about. Great video!
blue clay actually looks pretty sick in those action photos
federer is best "its different, BUT YOU ADDAPT. GIT GUD!"
Even though he was bitching about the colour of the clay being different
You adapt when it's favorable to you I suppose :3
@@Ephraim225 wait no... You don't adapt when its favorable for you. Thats not how you adapt. 😂
@@MrRomanrin Yeah but that's the point. Federer didn't really adapt so much as get gifted a meta-game that favors the style he already uses.
Meta in tennis LULW
This doesn’t make any sense. The only difference was the color, that means that a red clay court would have suffered the same thing given the same circumstances. So it was the weather not the color, that made things different. All this is according to the article.
Maybe the lack of Iron oxide has something to do with it
Exactly! Seemed like a bunch of crybabies
Probably the lack of iron and the salt they had to add to keep the colour...
Yeah, I forgot the iron
If I understand correctly due to how blue clay courts are made, it made it more susceptible to becoming more uneven then red clay courts. With red clay they had the same problems but with blue clay it was more severe.
I think seeing hyperoffensive tournaments using the slippery courts would be a fun side thing
Yo, if blue clay becomes a normal thing, some players could become specialists for blue clay, and it could be an entirely new league because it requires a different play style. That sounds like fun to me.
Im gonna explain this for everyone. I am from Madrid and about 2012 I was living like 100 meters away from "The Magic Box", the compound where Madrid Open was played. Main sponsor since the birth of Madrid Open has been Mutua Madrileña, an insurance company that have blue and white as corporative colours. Tiriac had the idea and his main sponsor was delighted(the company was making a push then to get out of Madrid to become nationwide). Mutua Madrileña used this as a platform to grow and agreed to pay more sponsorship money to Tiriac(at the same time other sponsors as L'Oreal, Samsung and other brands had raised sponsorship money for Tiriac). This wasnt revolutionary, this was a marketing campaign guys and Tiriac won huge
Still, it was a good idea, it just didn't have enough luck to work. Any clay would've faced the same problems, the way I understood it
This is like a game dev updating the map right before a tournament, fundamentally changing the meta of what strategies are good.
It's more like changing the servers to another continent instead of LAN for a tournament. I mean, considering the weather and poor maintenance, it would happen the same to red clay
more like updating the textures and an unrelated bug became associated with the texture change
im 36, I had no idea until now that courts were clay. Shows how much I watch tennis.
I'm not a fan of Tennis, but the blue clay made me watch the video. I personally find it more visually appealing than the other court colors.
The colour of the field makes the ball hard to see...... so instead of changing the colour balls.....we'll change the colour of the field!!!! *stonks*
or maybe, it’s bc of exactly what this guy said in the vid that the blue dye means the colours not naturally occurring, and requires preserving w salt to keep colour, making the courts more dangerous. while the red from iron oxide is naturally occurring so needs no salt. maybe watch the vid next time 😀
@@lamusicadehairyfrog3338 he glossed over that fact so quickly that most people in the comments missed it, not totally their fault imo
He's saying they should have changed the color of the ball
They didn’t change the colour of the ball because it’s smaller than the field and less noticeable
@italkcrab What color is optimal depends entirely on how it contrasts the rest of the image. A red clay field could use neon green, but Cyan would be optimal. For a green field, a red or magenta ball would be far easier to see than a neon green one.
I just like to rewatch these videos cuz they are such a vibe
Awesome video!
You know you're a good content creator when you can make someone who knows nothing about Tennis interested in tennis debacles
I played the sub 12 tournament that year, and let me tell you, it wasn’t that bad, I had a great time playing there and I thought the blue clay looked cool
Anita - It didn't.
@@jonhohensee3258 I mean, I was 11 when I played there for the first time, so to me it looked cool😂
@@anitafumeta7254 - Not true. You hated it.
@@aMolleTargate Considering the problem had nothing to do with the color of the clay, other than the fact it might have contributed to the use of salt to protect that color, the "professional competitors" were bitching about the wrong thing. They should have used this opportunity to highlight the real problem of those courts, which was the poor drainage. This same issue would have occurred had the surface been traditional red clay instead of blue, but because heavy rains followed by an extreme heatwave happened to coincide with a change in surface coloring, they blamed the coloring for the problem because they were already predisposed to hating it. tl;dr: the "pros" complain about the wrong issue and get something they irrationally hated banned for no reason
damn that's pretty cool
O love the Miami purple courts. We have fantastic purple courts at my old high school. The courts at my local park are blue. I would like blue hard tru or blue clay courts. 💙 Tiriac's innovative move with models as ball people is a interesting wild idea.
Great video!
It’s 2 am, I need to get up at 7, I don’t play tennis, this is the life.
🤝 I wish you luck
"I hope I never play on blue grass." Kentucky: am I a joke to you?
*sad banjo noises*
Blue grass would feel awful to play on. And then you got the horse and cow droppings everywhere.
Kentucky: Yes
My dad owned a sod farm and sold Kentucky Bluegrass. I think he'd be pretty insulted too.
Boise State: pathetic.
came to this video not even knowing there were different kinds of tennis courts, watched till the end. That blue clay looked beautiful tbh
this video has the dankpods test music in the background and i cannot simply ignore it