I'd Fire the Court Designer

image by Laurent Raymond via www.atpworldtour.com

Okay, no earth shattering topic this week. Simply something that I think is just wrong. The above image is from this week's Moselle Open in France. In case you can't tell, the court at the tournament is gray on gray. This has to be one of the ugliest tennis courts I have ever seen. I watched a little bit of a match between Paire and Becker last night and trust me, this picture does not do justice to how hideous this court surface looks. I actually thought for awhile that there was something wrong with the TV and the colors had been knocked out. To my horror, I slowly realized, "Dear God, that is the actual color of the court!" Look, I am all for experimental court colors. I actually thought the blue clay in Madrid last year was cool and made it easy to locate the ball. It was too bad they couldn't figure out how to keep the surface stable once they added the color.

The Moselle court is a case where the saying "There's what is and what should never be." is an apt description. The color combo of 2 grays does nothing but make it look drab and absolutely mind numbing to watch. It's like the court is broadcast in black & white while everything else is in color. The fans must agree with me as there was nobody there whatsoever, even with a French player playing. I'd say some things are better left to the professionals but after seeing this, maybe next year Moselle should let a toddler pick the court colors.