psamp14
Hall of Fame
check it out for yourselves......
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_y...g=reu-australiasurface&prov=reuters&type=lgns
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_y...g=reu-australiasurface&prov=reuters&type=lgns
New Surface for 2008 Australian Open
- Thread starter psamp14
- Start date
bluetrain4
G.O.A.T.
I'm glad it's going to be faster. Beyond the heat retention, the Rebound Ace had a nasty habit of causing twisted ankles and worse injuries.
Heavy Metal Tennis Star
Professional
yeah, i have played on rebound ace in the philippines and in indonesia, they are kinda gluey when hot.
BigServer1
Legend
So it will be the US Open...While I agree from an injury standpoint, I think it's sad that the surfaces continue to become more and more similar.
Nadal_Freak
Banned
They should switch to green clay. That would be awesome.
BigServer1
Legend
That is not a bad idea...Green clay is faster than the Red clay, but slower than a traditional HC, and easier on the body than the old, sticky AO surface. The only issue is the fact that Green clay is so damn ugly...They would have to change the look of it somehow...
edmondsm
Legend
I couldn't agree more. In all fairness, there should be two clay-court slams, since Wimbledon, more or less, benefits the hardcourter.
"The court characteristics for next year's Australian Open will be very similar to what we achieved in 2007, with the surface playing in the medium to medium-fast range," Tiley said in a statement.
The AO was already much faster in 2007, it wasn´t a slow hardcourt anymore. I said it in January. Why some people keep saying that it was a slow hardcourt? It wasn´t.I don´t think it´s good for tennis and the AO.
The AO was already much faster in 2007, it wasn´t a slow hardcourt anymore. I said it in January. Why some people keep saying that it was a slow hardcourt? It wasn´t.I don´t think it´s good for tennis and the AO.
bluetrain4
G.O.A.T.
The period that the AO was on rebound ace represents the only period in history when the Slams were all on different surfaces. I don't understand everyone's obsession with this. Plus, even though Rebound Ace plays differently than the USO, I don't think anyone considers it different enough to look back on the record books and say that a player won on different surfaces because he/she won on the USO hardcourts and Rebound Ace. The wins would go down generally as hardcourt wins.
Like any hardcourt, Rebound Ace could be manipuated by altering the compostition of the base materials and the paint. The AO can still set up their new courts to be different from the USO if they want.
Nadal_Freak
Banned
Or they could go to sand or ice. Sand being slower than red clay and Ice being faster than grass.
Voltron
Hall of Fame
No, because clay court tennis is less fun to watch. Wimbledon is the most fun IMHO.
Nadal_Freak
Banned
You already got 2 fast slams. Wimbledon and US Open. It should be fair to equal with 2 slow surfaces as well.
VGP
Legend
Sounds like the selection process partly went though Lleyton Hewitt's dislike for Rebound Ace....
I like this article from TennisWeek and what Hewitt says.
http://www.sportsmediainc.com/tennisweek/index.cfm?func=showarticle&newsid=17013&bannerregion=
I like this article from TennisWeek and what Hewitt says.
http://www.sportsmediainc.com/tennisweek/index.cfm?func=showarticle&newsid=17013&bannerregion=
D
Deleted member 3771
Guest
but the AO has better weather, better facilities and nno 5th set tie breaks, so the US open will be like the AO's little brother.
D
Deleted member 3771
Guest
Mabe the US open should consider switching to green clay to encourage more of their up and coming players to develop their point construction after the efforts of all their male players at the FO.
Attila the tennis Bum
Banned
Thats great news for Roddick but terrible news for Nadal. I have played on that surface and its all about serves.
Heavy Metal Tennis Star
Professional
people act like roddick still has a chance to win a slam, its over.
forzainter
Semi-Pro
the clay court season is my favourite part of tennis all together. But i cant imagine the players being too happy playing 5 set clay matches in 43 degree heat, it wouldnt be good for the players in my opinion. Also, if they were going to make it clay, make it blue clay, just to be different.
tennis_hand
Hall of Fame
well, the news didn't say the new court is going to be faster. the director said it is still medium to medium fast, didn't he?
AgassiFan12
New User
YOu think clay court tennis is less fun?? I am the exact opposite. I think clay and hard court points are the most fun because they are more constructed and their is much more strategy involved than hitting the hell out of the ball like they do at Wimbledon. That's just my opinion.
logansc
Professional
I swear you should really get a new hobby besides Roddick bashing. This thread is about the new surface and you bring up how much you think Roddick sucks like you do in every other thread. Everyone that enters the draw theoretically has a chance.
About the new surface, Rebound Ace was nice for a while but all the players hate it, the court gets to be about 120 degrees and it sucks to play in the kind of heat. Australian tennis on the international level hasn't done much in a while and they are trying to make a decent surface for their slam and get more Australian young people into the sport. Juniors were quitting in frustration left and right because its so hard to grow up on R.A. Just google new surface in Australia and you will get about 10 newspaper articles that talk about it.
Forehand Forever
Professional
Maybe Roddick will have a good chance at winning the Australian now.
Z
Ztalin
Guest
Decoturf is all of my club's indoor courts. It's a really good surface. Slower than traditional outdoor courts, a bit higher bounce. I think it's a good change.
Someone said that you need to have 2 fast slams and 2 slow ones... that's crap. Wimbledon was slowed down to bitter sweet ****. It used to be that Wimbledon was the FAST surface, USO and Aussie were in between, and French was slow. Now Wimbledone AND USO are the fast surfaces? No, they are the fastest current surfaces, but not what older players would consider fast (like the grass of old). Having a har-tru slam would be ********.
logansc
Professional
Agreed. Har Tru is basically a hard court with a slightly bigger bounce, it is easier on the legs but the movement is nothing like the red stuff. If you try to slide on Har Tru, you might end up face first in the green stuff.
ACE of Hearts
Bionic Poster
Nadal hasnt maded a final in australia yet, so he still has work to do.I am sure Fed is loving this although he looked pretty good on rebound ace.
Nadal_Freak
Banned
I actually think the change of surface might help Nadal. If it plays like Indian Wells than Nadal has a chance. Indoors and night matches don't help Nadal out at all. Nadal didn't look too comforable on rebound ace anyways.
Kaptain Karl
Hall Of Fame
I grew-up on Har-Tru (and Rubico, virtually the same) in Alabama. We could slide on the green clay very easily....
- KK
Sorry mate - we don't grow up on RA. Just doesn't happen. Maybe 5% of kids that live in inner-city areas, and certainly any kid that makes it to upper-levels and moves to an academy or a state-level squad... sure. But in the mainstream, we 'grow-up' on synthetic grass, har-tru & hardcourt.
RA was simply so expensive that it never made it out the the 'regular' tennis clubs or council courts....
logansc
Professional
Didn't know that, I was just going by what I read from the Aussie papers. Maybe they were referring to Juniors in training or something like that. Synthetic Grass...never heard of that but it does sound good.
logansc
Professional
Could just be my shoes then, because I played Har Tru yesterday for the first time in a long time and tried to slide into a volley and just stopped and almost faceplanted haha...
You'd call it astro-turf, most likely. It's not good, unfortunately, the only good things about it are that it's playable in light rain, and it's softer on the joints than hardcourt. Playability-wise, it's fair more likely to be to blame for the demise in aussie juniors - it's fast, horrid, and not used for any pro tournaments on earth. It certainly doesn't encourage players to learn how to play long points.
Tennis Aus actually has a clay-court initiative in place right now, trying to get clubs and coaches to convert to clay. With this in mind, I'm very surprised that they're keeping a medium-fast surface for the AO.
OrangeOne,
Beg to differ on the TA trying to get clubs to change to clay. TA did not even consider clay for AO, only hard courts. TA is offering to subsidise tennis clubs $18000.00 per court for putting in the same hard court as at the AO but nothing for any other surface. Classic Clay, Poly Clay etc are not recognised by TA as meeting their requirements for tennis courts. They do recognise red porous (en-tous-cart) but let's face it with the drought at the moment these courts are not really a good investment and TA will not subsidise their construction anyhow. I think that what TA forgets is that tennis clubs are not run by juniors but mostly by people in their 40's and 50's who are not going to put in hardcourts, when softer ie underfoot options are available, just in the hope that one of their juniors may one day be able to play professional tennis.
Beg to differ on the TA trying to get clubs to change to clay. TA did not even consider clay for AO, only hard courts. TA is offering to subsidise tennis clubs $18000.00 per court for putting in the same hard court as at the AO but nothing for any other surface. Classic Clay, Poly Clay etc are not recognised by TA as meeting their requirements for tennis courts. They do recognise red porous (en-tous-cart) but let's face it with the drought at the moment these courts are not really a good investment and TA will not subsidise their construction anyhow. I think that what TA forgets is that tennis clubs are not run by juniors but mostly by people in their 40's and 50's who are not going to put in hardcourts, when softer ie underfoot options are available, just in the hope that one of their juniors may one day be able to play professional tennis.
I must admit I heard about the clay initiative 2nd-hand, so my apologies if I'm quoting a bad source.
That said, I find it hard to believe TA would offer $18k per court to upgrade to the new surface - this could easily run into millions in an instant. Do you have a link?
This is good news. Everything is slower now than it used to be just a few years ago. Wimbledon with their new grass is nowhere near as fast as what it was, and there's a general trend to slow everything down. As a result we don't really have true attacking tennis being played. Plus, rebound ace and hot sun is an accident waiting to happen.
OrangeOne
We had a guy come out to our club from Tennis Vic when we were researching possible replacements for our porous courts. This was the info that he provided. As for millions of dollars just remember that $18000 is not going to cover half the cost of the court anyhow - the new courts they are going to lay are approx $38000 each and Rebound Ace was $45000, so not a lot of difference. And knowing TA as we well do there is probably disclaimers left right and centre on the granting of the moneys. Also as I said not a lot of clubs, well the ones that I know, are interested in laying hard courts because of the demographics of the tennis population in Aus, well definitely in Vic, anyhow - mostly people in the late twenties up are the only ones playing comp from what I have experienced. Very few juniors seem to keep playing after 17 or so in our (Northern Suburbs) Comp that I have seen. So I think that TA's money is pretty safe. Most clubs who do change their courts are going to Synthetic Grass or Classic Clay from what I have seen. This was borne out by the guy from Tennis Vic who could only give two egs of clubs laying hard courts in the last twelve months c/w 10 that have laid classic clay/synthetic grass.
We had a guy come out to our club from Tennis Vic when we were researching possible replacements for our porous courts. This was the info that he provided. As for millions of dollars just remember that $18000 is not going to cover half the cost of the court anyhow - the new courts they are going to lay are approx $38000 each and Rebound Ace was $45000, so not a lot of difference. And knowing TA as we well do there is probably disclaimers left right and centre on the granting of the moneys. Also as I said not a lot of clubs, well the ones that I know, are interested in laying hard courts because of the demographics of the tennis population in Aus, well definitely in Vic, anyhow - mostly people in the late twenties up are the only ones playing comp from what I have experienced. Very few juniors seem to keep playing after 17 or so in our (Northern Suburbs) Comp that I have seen. So I think that TA's money is pretty safe. Most clubs who do change their courts are going to Synthetic Grass or Classic Clay from what I have seen. This was borne out by the guy from Tennis Vic who could only give two egs of clubs laying hard courts in the last twelve months c/w 10 that have laid classic clay/synthetic grass.
jackson vile
G.O.A.T.
The thing is that the AO really makes no sense at all we have a hard court slam to start of the year and then almost straight to slow clay then super short grass season then hard court season.
It would make more sense for the year to start out all slow, then lengthen the grass season then end on the hard court season.
This makes more sense rather than mixing it up like that.
Other wise the AO needs to be slower and bouncier than the USO other wise what is the point of having two USOs?
Not to mention the players don't even have to deal with the AO heat that all the other player had to in the past.
Like what was said, they are making the courts more the same which makes no sense at all.
It would make more sense for the year to start out all slow, then lengthen the grass season then end on the hard court season.
This makes more sense rather than mixing it up like that.
Other wise the AO needs to be slower and bouncier than the USO other wise what is the point of having two USOs?
Not to mention the players don't even have to deal with the AO heat that all the other player had to in the past.
Like what was said, they are making the courts more the same which makes no sense at all.
1. I agree. We don't need two US Opens so let's scrap the American version and the players can have a lengthy off-season.
2. No! It makes far more sense to finish the year on the natural surfaces - clay and grass. So, let's either move the US Open or get rid of it altogether.
3. It makes far more sense to have the synthetic surfaces play fast. The slower they are, the more time players have to spend on them and the greater the strain on their bodies. So, the Aus and US Opens should be medium to fast.
** For anyone who thought grass should have been an option - it was never considered. The Australian Open is played at a public venue so the courts have to be in use year-round. Grass just can't take that kind of punishment so it isn't a viable alternative. Clay was one of the options but wasn't favoured by the players and would have been a hard sell for TA.
tursafinov
Rookie
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