Tangled up in blue.

Early one morning the sun was shining
I was laying in bed
Wond'ring if she'd changed it all
If her hair was still red

Nope. It’s tangled up in blue. 

Contrary to what my sampling of Bob Dylan lyrics might suggest, this entry isn’t so much about the blue, blue clay of the Spanish highlands as it is about, well, plastic tennis courts. This is not to say that I wasn’t tempted to write at length about blue clay, because, clearly, nobody is paying it any attention, but I already said some stuff about it a few months ago and as much as blue earth reminded me of radioactive snowballs back then, I’ve had some time to get used to the idea. After all, I hail from a country that dyes its rivers green to celebrate the once-upon-a-time life of a distant island saint. My people gave the world glowing blue juice that is flavored to taste just like “Fierce” (which studies have shown tastes just like kumquat, or chicken, or both). As a child I took grade-school field trips to see the disaster zone that was “Love Canal,” the world’s most deceptively named toxic landfill. In comparison to all that, what’s a pinch of blue dye in the dirt?  

And I must admit, when I watched my half of three-apples high stream of the Harrison-Souza match in Belgrade, I couldn’t help but think that if the clay were another color—perhaps a primary color that's almost directly opposite to yellow on the color wheel— I might be able to detect the presence of a tennis ball. Of course, Madrid is a Masters level tournament so I'll be able to watch it on the HDTV and won't need to bother with a tiny stream. But you know where they really need the blue clay? That’s right, Houston.  

I’m not the only American who is willing to give the blue stuff a shot. Andy Roddick loves it because it helps him delude himself to thinking that he’s on a hard court—although even imaginary concrete isn't enough to make Andy actually play on clay this year. (Criminy. I just googled “Andy out of Madrid” to confirm that I was blogging the whole truth and not just the partial twitter-truth, and I see that Andy Murray is out too. Apparently it’s Murray with the back injury and Roddick with the bad hamstring. Isn’t it usually the other way round? Poor Andys. Also, the men's draw is out! I've been so tangled up in life this week that I'm way behind on my tennis.)


The kiddo, of course, thinks the new courts are “awesome.” Everyone knows that young persons are drawn to new, brightly colored objects, but I suspect that Ryan Harrison’s enthusiasm for the blue courts stems from the fact that I sent him a tweet pointing out that the blue was a good color for him. Yes indeed, I succinctly highlighted the fact that it would match his eyes and requested that he coordinate the rest of his kit accordingly. Or maybe my tweet actually said “good luck in Madrid,” but either way, I’m hopeful that he got the message. I also remain hopeful that he is able to win a match next week, or at least lose a good one.

Venus thinks the blue clay is a great “fashion statement,” making me optimistic that the fashion-forward Eleven has some surprises in store for us fans next week. Maybe a full-on Na’vi bodysuit? Serena, on the other hand, told Tennis Panorama News, “No one likes it. I’m on the council, we all voted against it. It’s interesting to see that they just did what they wanted. I just wish they hadn’t asked us and wasted our time.”


Anyway, it appears I’ve gone and wasted a good half-post on the blue clay. I do still have a story for you about how there are way worse tennis courts in life than blue ones, so if you're interested...

Slippery, smurfy, low-bouncing? Bah. That’s nothing compared to what the university in my hometown did to their tennis courts back in the 90s. “Grover’s Corners U” was never an athletic powerhouse but they are a sports-oriented school, and they did have a real, live tennis team. One day, no one is quite sure why, although there must have been a committee involved because no makes decisions this bad without peer pressure, GCU decided move beyond merely weeding the cracks in the court and repainting all the lines. GCU decided to innovate. In the process of innovation, they had a brainstorm so devastatingly bad that I suspect it permanently shorted the neural circuits in the minds of several Planning Committee members:

• It rains in Grover’s Corners.
• When it rains tennis courts get wet.
• Tennis courts can take hours and hours to dry.
• Therefore we should install WATERPROOF tennis courts.

I imagine that at this very moment some of you are trying to picture just what exactly a waterproof tennis court looks like. Does it come equipped with roll-out tarps? Is the court sprayed with Rainex and swept with massive court-wide wiper blades? Or perhaps it's coated with Teflon? No, that wouldn’t make the courts slippery enough by half. The key to waterproof tennis courts turned out to be plastic tennis courts covered in smallish holes. Ion is starting to sound like the sensible no-nonsense type isn't he? 

The general idea was that the water would fall through the holes and settle in the half inch or so that separated the plastic from the earth, thus leaving the playing surface pristine for tennis at all times. Vividly lego-hued, the courts were quite pleasing to the eye, and up close they were almost pretty, like a lace doily or an attractive trivet. Intricate twists of plastic were combined to form 4x4" squares that were laid out like tile across the expanse of court. The interlocking trivet-squares were topped with an abrasive tread so that you wouldn’t fall and kill yourself just by walking across them. However, the tread was quite sharp, so if you fell while running, you could, in effect, flay yourself alive. This was a useful feature if the goal were to prepare for a cannibalistic summer barbecue, but not so handy for forehand preparation. And, trust me, you would fall, because despite the tread, the slick plastic was as slippery as a Gatorade Fierce bottle coated in butter. To add insult to injury, the bumpy joins between the plastic tiles made tennis balls act like children's bouncy balls. After the ball hit the court it would rebound in a completely random direction—or sometimes, just for fun, fail to bounce at all. Another problem that the Planning Committee failed to foresee was what would happen to all the water that “drained” into the darkness under the court. As it turns out, it stagnated and formed a kind of half-inch-deep under-court pond; a small layer of  mosquito heaven in tennis court hell. 

Conclusion: If you’re worried about any of your favorite players' welfare on the blue courts, just be glad that they never played on the Grover's Corners University tennis team. It’s one thing to be tangled up in blue, it’s quite another to be tangled up in sharp bits of twisted plastic while being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Photo: A. Martinez/Mutua Madrid Open