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Madrid Open 2012: The Blue Clay Makes Defensive Tennis Impossible
Published: May 12, 2012
David Ferrer is–less surprisingly–also out, losing for the 13th consecutive time to Roger Federer.
The remaining four semifinalists: Federer, Tipsarevic, Juan Martin del Potro and Tomas Berdych are not your usual suspects at the tail end of a clay court Masters.
No Spaniards among them, no Nadal, no Ferrer, no Djokovic.
Still, they can all play on clay. And they all hit the ball pretty big and kept rallies short (Tipsa less so).
Madrid has always been a strange clay court tournament. A tournament where Federer plays Nadal closer than elsewhere on clay and has even beaten him.
The high altitude explains that, making the ball move faster through the court, and thus favoring offensive tennis more than the usual clay court.
The blue clay favors offensive tennis in a more indirect way. It makes it next to impossible to defend.
Sure, you can get to one ball, but the players cannot turn around as quickly and get themselves back to a neutral position.
Whereas you would normally need to hit three-four 'winners' to win a point against Nadal, Djokovic or Ferrer—three of the four best defenders in the game (Murray being the fourth)—one or two "winners" can get the job done on the blue clay.
This is why Berdych can annihilate another great defender, Gael Monfils, 6-1, 6-1 losing just four points on serve (caveat: Monfils just came back from injury).
This is why Ferrer can only win six points off Roger Federer's serve (out of 46 points played) despite winning 34 out of 97 on Raonic' serve in Barcelona a couple of weeks back. Ferrer simply doesn't recover well enough on the blue ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis
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