vmosrafa08
Semi-Pro
From the Sydney Morning Herald
Link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/tennis/s...eys-court-claim/2008/01/12/1199988645722.html
AUSTRALIAN Open tournament director Craig Tiley will be sweating bullets when his most emphatic claim about Melbourne Park's new Plexicushion surface is put to the test by the blistering temperatures forecast for Tuesday.
As revealed by The Sun-Herald a month ago, the Plexicushion Prestige courts introduced to Australia this summer are slower than Tiley predicted. Minimal, if any, testing was done on the new surface, a softer version of Plexicushion courts used overseas. Players at this week's Medibank International, led by world No.8 Richard Gasquet, also complained about the courts being incompatible with the Wilson balls to be used in Melbourne.
Tiley said he was "confident we have found a court that retains less heat" than the surface used at the Open for the past 20 years, Rebound Ace. Come Tuesday, when the mercury is forecast to reach 37 degrees, he will know whether he's made the right choice - or a gigantic blunder.
The Sun-Herald understands the resin used in the rubber base of the Plexicushion courts has a softening temperature of about 50 degrees. The dark-blue court's surface temperature is likely to hit the 60s on Tuesday, and that could spell trouble. Acrylic-cushioned hardcourts become sticky and soft underfoot when they overheat, causing ankle, knee and hip injuries. The locker room could resemble a war zone.
The polyurethane resin used in Rebound Ace has a softening point of about 85 degrees.
Tennis Australia consulted leading overseas players before ripping up Rebound Ace, but their opinions were based on different styles of Plexicushion. Hence, Roger Federer arrived last week admitting he knew very little about the conditions he was about to face in Melbourne.
In a letter obtained by The Sun-Herald, Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood told Rebound Ace boss Paul Bull after the 2006 tournament: "Tennis Australia wishes to acknowledge the involvement of Rebound Ace in another successful Australian Open.
"The Rebound Ace court surface as installed by Rebound Ace Sports met the specified requirements of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open, which was chosen to be a medium-fast speed due to the great success of the tournament in 2005 with the same speed of surface."
Two years later, the same courts have been deemed unworthy. On top of widespread concerns about speed and compatibility with the balls, a number of players have suffered injuries on the surface: Mark Philippoussis, Jelena Dokic, Jelena Jankovic, Meghann Shaughnessy and David Nalbandian.
Melbourne's hottest day of the week will coincide with Australian No.1 Lleyton Hewitt's first round clash against Belgian Steve Darcis.
Former Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee has taken Tiley to task for claiming part of the problem with Rebound Ace was inconsistency from venue to venue, most notably between Sydney and Melbourne.
"Why were the courts in Melbourne slower? It was because they didn't resurface in Sydney and Tennis Australia knew that," McNamee said.
"I'm a little disappointed for Craig Tiley to be using inconsistency as justification for the switch. The reasons for the inconsistency were known to him. If you don't resurface Sydney and Melbourne at the same time, it's inevitable they're going to play differently.
"Let's just deal with facts here. It's a bit rich for him to use that line and try to rewrite history. If they wanted to change courts, fair enough. But don't use that as a reason."
Told of McNamee's claims, Bull said: "Aside from the top-coat resurfacing, another major factor in the speed difference between Sydney and Melbourne was that the Melbourne courts had the old 10 millimetre-thick cushion while Sydney had the newer technology, 4mm cushion, which gave a lower ball bounce, a cooler surface, and a faster ball speed from a player perception viewpoint.
"We supported the need to upgrade the Melbourne courts, but the acrylic cushion chosen is just not suitable for our hot summer climate. We advised Tennis Australia of this fact - but obviously it fell on deaf ears."
COMMENT
TENNIS Australia rushed in the new Plexicushion surface with a recklessly small amount of research.
Anxious Australian Open director and Tennis Australia's high performance manager Craig Tiley expedited the bidding process to have the courts in place for this week's tournament. As he says, the choice of surface was monumentally important because venues throughout the country (helped by $16,000 TA grants) would use whatever type of court was chosen for Melbourne Park. His intentions were good, but it's threatening to become a disaster.
There have been injuries galore in the lead-up tournaments. Impartial overseas players such as James Blake and Richard Gasquet say the courts are slow and don't mix with the Wilson balls. Andy Murray says the Australian Open is losing its local flavour. The Australian Open is the major that doesn't know who it is. Plexicushion and Wilson, having replaced the Australian-owned Rebound Ace courts and Slazenger balls, are both American.
So, why make the change? At best, the new courts - at a cost of millions of dollars - are no different to Rebound Ace. At worst they're, well, worse. Again: why change? It was such a bizarre choice The Sun-Herald investigated the stunning move. Former Wimbledon champion Ashley Cooper was on both the court selection committee and TA board that voted for Plexicushion.
The courts are supplied in this country by Australian Plexipave - the company Cooper founded and profited from between 1977 and 2001. He denies any insinuation of a conflict of interest, and is no longer directly involved in the company. He must be taken at his word. But to have him involved was not a good look.
Tiley wanted medium-fast courts with the waist-high bounce of the US Open. They might end up that way after years of wear and tear. But for now, they're medium-slow with head-high bounce. The balls fluff up. It's not the fault of the balls. They did not fluff up last year on Rebound Ace. It's the fault of the court, which, again, was tested inadequately.
Australia's most respected coach, Tony Roche, says the new brand of Rebound Ace is the best on the planet but not one second of play-testing was done on that company's lastest product. Why?
Word spread after last year's US Open that Plexicushion would be used in Australia. Lo and behold, it's happened. Rebound Ace representatives gave their proposal in March. They did not hear another word from TA - and this after 20 years of suppling the Australian Open courts. The only testing done by TA was comparing the latest Plexicushion product with Rebound Ace's 20-year-old version. Unbelievable, but true.
TA's last hope is that Plexicushion does not turn into a glue pot when temperatures rise. Past injuries have been blamed on Rebound Ace retaining too much heat. Tiley claims to have "scoured the world" looking for a cooler court. If it's not cooler, all hell will break loose. And Tiley will have some explaining to do.
Link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/tennis/s...eys-court-claim/2008/01/12/1199988645722.html
AUSTRALIAN Open tournament director Craig Tiley will be sweating bullets when his most emphatic claim about Melbourne Park's new Plexicushion surface is put to the test by the blistering temperatures forecast for Tuesday.
As revealed by The Sun-Herald a month ago, the Plexicushion Prestige courts introduced to Australia this summer are slower than Tiley predicted. Minimal, if any, testing was done on the new surface, a softer version of Plexicushion courts used overseas. Players at this week's Medibank International, led by world No.8 Richard Gasquet, also complained about the courts being incompatible with the Wilson balls to be used in Melbourne.
Tiley said he was "confident we have found a court that retains less heat" than the surface used at the Open for the past 20 years, Rebound Ace. Come Tuesday, when the mercury is forecast to reach 37 degrees, he will know whether he's made the right choice - or a gigantic blunder.
The Sun-Herald understands the resin used in the rubber base of the Plexicushion courts has a softening temperature of about 50 degrees. The dark-blue court's surface temperature is likely to hit the 60s on Tuesday, and that could spell trouble. Acrylic-cushioned hardcourts become sticky and soft underfoot when they overheat, causing ankle, knee and hip injuries. The locker room could resemble a war zone.
The polyurethane resin used in Rebound Ace has a softening point of about 85 degrees.
Tennis Australia consulted leading overseas players before ripping up Rebound Ace, but their opinions were based on different styles of Plexicushion. Hence, Roger Federer arrived last week admitting he knew very little about the conditions he was about to face in Melbourne.
In a letter obtained by The Sun-Herald, Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood told Rebound Ace boss Paul Bull after the 2006 tournament: "Tennis Australia wishes to acknowledge the involvement of Rebound Ace in another successful Australian Open.
"The Rebound Ace court surface as installed by Rebound Ace Sports met the specified requirements of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open, which was chosen to be a medium-fast speed due to the great success of the tournament in 2005 with the same speed of surface."
Two years later, the same courts have been deemed unworthy. On top of widespread concerns about speed and compatibility with the balls, a number of players have suffered injuries on the surface: Mark Philippoussis, Jelena Dokic, Jelena Jankovic, Meghann Shaughnessy and David Nalbandian.
Melbourne's hottest day of the week will coincide with Australian No.1 Lleyton Hewitt's first round clash against Belgian Steve Darcis.
Former Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee has taken Tiley to task for claiming part of the problem with Rebound Ace was inconsistency from venue to venue, most notably between Sydney and Melbourne.
"Why were the courts in Melbourne slower? It was because they didn't resurface in Sydney and Tennis Australia knew that," McNamee said.
"I'm a little disappointed for Craig Tiley to be using inconsistency as justification for the switch. The reasons for the inconsistency were known to him. If you don't resurface Sydney and Melbourne at the same time, it's inevitable they're going to play differently.
"Let's just deal with facts here. It's a bit rich for him to use that line and try to rewrite history. If they wanted to change courts, fair enough. But don't use that as a reason."
Told of McNamee's claims, Bull said: "Aside from the top-coat resurfacing, another major factor in the speed difference between Sydney and Melbourne was that the Melbourne courts had the old 10 millimetre-thick cushion while Sydney had the newer technology, 4mm cushion, which gave a lower ball bounce, a cooler surface, and a faster ball speed from a player perception viewpoint.
"We supported the need to upgrade the Melbourne courts, but the acrylic cushion chosen is just not suitable for our hot summer climate. We advised Tennis Australia of this fact - but obviously it fell on deaf ears."
COMMENT
TENNIS Australia rushed in the new Plexicushion surface with a recklessly small amount of research.
Anxious Australian Open director and Tennis Australia's high performance manager Craig Tiley expedited the bidding process to have the courts in place for this week's tournament. As he says, the choice of surface was monumentally important because venues throughout the country (helped by $16,000 TA grants) would use whatever type of court was chosen for Melbourne Park. His intentions were good, but it's threatening to become a disaster.
There have been injuries galore in the lead-up tournaments. Impartial overseas players such as James Blake and Richard Gasquet say the courts are slow and don't mix with the Wilson balls. Andy Murray says the Australian Open is losing its local flavour. The Australian Open is the major that doesn't know who it is. Plexicushion and Wilson, having replaced the Australian-owned Rebound Ace courts and Slazenger balls, are both American.
So, why make the change? At best, the new courts - at a cost of millions of dollars - are no different to Rebound Ace. At worst they're, well, worse. Again: why change? It was such a bizarre choice The Sun-Herald investigated the stunning move. Former Wimbledon champion Ashley Cooper was on both the court selection committee and TA board that voted for Plexicushion.
The courts are supplied in this country by Australian Plexipave - the company Cooper founded and profited from between 1977 and 2001. He denies any insinuation of a conflict of interest, and is no longer directly involved in the company. He must be taken at his word. But to have him involved was not a good look.
Tiley wanted medium-fast courts with the waist-high bounce of the US Open. They might end up that way after years of wear and tear. But for now, they're medium-slow with head-high bounce. The balls fluff up. It's not the fault of the balls. They did not fluff up last year on Rebound Ace. It's the fault of the court, which, again, was tested inadequately.
Australia's most respected coach, Tony Roche, says the new brand of Rebound Ace is the best on the planet but not one second of play-testing was done on that company's lastest product. Why?
Word spread after last year's US Open that Plexicushion would be used in Australia. Lo and behold, it's happened. Rebound Ace representatives gave their proposal in March. They did not hear another word from TA - and this after 20 years of suppling the Australian Open courts. The only testing done by TA was comparing the latest Plexicushion product with Rebound Ace's 20-year-old version. Unbelievable, but true.
TA's last hope is that Plexicushion does not turn into a glue pot when temperatures rise. Past injuries have been blamed on Rebound Ace retaining too much heat. Tiley claims to have "scoured the world" looking for a cooler court. If it's not cooler, all hell will break loose. And Tiley will have some explaining to do.
