This is a weird time of year for tennis fans. On the one hand, the recreational season is in full swing, as people hit the courts and league tennis heats up as teams try to reach nationals in their final matches. On the other hand, the pro tours seem to fizzle like a barbeque without beer.
The main point of interest during the dog days of summer, the marketing machine that ties the calendar together and is supposed to build excitement toward the year's final Grand Slam, is the U.S. Open Series. Now in its sixth year, the series has always sounded good on paper but in practice, not so much.
It's no secret that the series has struggled to gather any significant momentum, at least in terms of getting the top players (particularly from abroad) to commit. Case in point: The men leading the points race at the start of Week 3 are Sam Querrey, Robby Ginepri, Carsten Ball (who?) and John Isner. Although the leaderboard should sort itself out once the big guns compete in the two upcoming Masters events, the series seems more irrelevant with each passing season.
There is a way to help reinvigorate the summer hard-court swing, and it starts with those big blue monsters you see on TV. Let's rip up each and every hard court from Los Angeles to New York and replace them with fan-friendly courts.
Really, is there a worse surface than hard courts? The slabs of asphalt and acrylic used for the U.S. Open Series and the U.S. Open produce a one-dimensional, bludgeoning style of play that has all the subtlety of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. That might be good business for the American men, who've cornered the market on fast hard courts, but it's bad news for fans.
You only had to watch the quarterfinal match last week in Los Angeles, between Tommy Haas and Querrey, to see just how dull hard courts can make a match. Haas, one of the game's most creative players, was suckered into a slugfest, blasting forehands and backhands without much thought behind them. You never would have known that earlier in the season Haas was the guy who served and volleyed to the Wimbledon semifinals or used every corner of the court in a thrilling Roland Garros match against Roger Federer.
What's the best alternative to hard courts? My vote goes to making clay our new national surface.
Switching the summer tournaments to clay would make the game more aesthetically pleasing for American fans. On hard courts, players can coast on one big shot (Isner, anyone), but clay requires guile, versatility and patience. Fans are treated to drop shots, slices, dinks, volleys and moonballs. Players must master all the angles and the art of sliding into their shots. And when it rains, play isn't immediately suspended because the surface becomes too treacherous. Instead, you get to see how the combatants will cope with slower, heavier balls.
In short, clay makes tennis more interesting.
Another benefit of adopting clay in America: It should convince the game's heavy hitters, all of whom are from Europe and South America where clay is the surface of choice, to come to America sooner. Instead of worrying about beating up their bodies on hard courts for almost two months, which factors into their highly selective tournament schedules, they can compete on a more forgiving surface.
Many tournaments in the U.S. used to be played on clay after Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open was held on dirt in 1977. It worked back then, and it would work even better now. You would get more top players in the States, stronger competition at more tournaments and most of all you would get to see some beautiful tennis. Can you think of a better way to reheat the summer series?
