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.

Why I Love Final Set Tiebreaks!

After some technical difficulties, I'm back!

With the U.S. Open in full swing, I thought I'd share my thoughts on one of the aspects that makes the Open unique among the Grand Slams. The U.S. Open is the only Slam that utilizes the final set tiebreak instead of the win by 2 format of the others. In a nutshell, no 70-68 score is coming to come out of New York in the month of September.

I for one, love the tiebreak format for this event. I know it has its detractors but I think it adds a great deal to the game. For one, I think it creates a sense of urgency with the players. No offense to Isner or Mahut, but that epic Wimbledon match was largely 2+ days of neither doing anything on the other player's serve. The tiebreak rewards players willing to stay aggressive on their return games and go for shots. It limits the ability to focus on just your serve and brings a focus on balancing serve and return games. I also think it ups the ante on the end of the match being a battle of mental toughness. Knowing you are mere points away, rather than games I think really lays bare who has the mental fortitude to find a way to win and who is going to crumble under pressure. You also can't discount the crowd factor as well. A tiebreak can provide for a very exciting finish and the crowd can get fired up knowing every single point counts.

What do you think? Is the final set tiebreak a great way to keep the only American slam unique or should we let the players grind it out as in the other majors?

Ps. As a friend pointed out today, I find it very bizarre for Grand Slam mixed doubles to use no-ad scoring w/ gender specific serving (as seen in the final today). It's not local league, they are all professionals on that court!