Talk:Clay court

Grammar

This article is in need of some serious grammatical revisions.

History

Here's an article from Yahoo! about the French Open. The last part of the article includes an account of how clay courts started and became fashionable in the late 19th century/early 20th century. This can be included as a further elaboration for this article. Joey80 09:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Balls bounce higher or lower on clay?

This article states that the ball bounces "relatively high" on clay relative to other surfaces. The article on Clay-court specialist states that "the ball tends to bounce much lower than on hard courts, grass courts, or other surfaces."

Which is it?

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A top spin groundstroke is going to bounce higher but slower on clay because of the dirt compressing under/in front of the ball as it bounces. A drop shot (the shot being referenced in the clay court specialist artice,) which has a very steep angle of descent, is going to bounce lower because of the dirt "cushioning" the bounce. The specialist article possibly needs to be clarified.

Lines

I searched this topic hoping to find out how the lines are done on clay courts. Obviously they aren't just chalk or they wouldn't last more than a few points. Can someone shed some light on this?

Lines are marked using white tape.

Can someone add something on the maintenance of a clay court -- the article merely says it is rolled. What with, how often, between matches, what if it rains etc.Cross Reference (talk) 02:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

And if the lines are marked with tape, how does the tape stay in place? Cross Reference (talk) 03:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

To answer that question (five years later), its actually nailed down. A long nail with a broad, flat textured head is driven through the tape (itself textured so it doesn't become a slipping hazard) , through the "clay" (actually crushed brick or stone) and into the substrate every inch or so, in a zigzag pattern. However, other methods exist. Sometimes they're metal or plastic inserts into the clay. At Roland Garros, they actually use a permanent layer of resinous paint that goes deep into the substrate, like a fancier version of a plastic insert.The article should probably mention this. oknazevad (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Ball marks near lines during play: how is one of the most important things associated with clay courts missing from this article? Clay courts are the only type of courts on which the rules allow ball marks near lines to be checked to determine whether to correct the call as to whether the ball landed out. In probably a majority of televised clay-court matches, the chair umpire at least once leaves the chair to walk over to the line and check the mark left by the ball. I would guess that 90% of readers of this article will know this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qc1okay (talk • contribs) 16:35, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Read the article. The last paragraph of the Play section covers this already. oknazevad (talk) 16:51, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Gravel

Is gravel an uncommon synonym of clay court perhaps? We use it all the time here in NL, I thought it was English. Found some matches on BBC sites too, so I suppose I'm not entirely stupid.

Perhaps it could be added like ..sometimes also called.. (or more a specific when/bywho, if someone can clarify this some more).

Native English speaker here (USA). I have never heard it referred to as gravel. Been playing tennis twenty years and watching for thirty (including watching Australian and British commentators). "Gravel" is very coarse rock, nothing like what you find in a clay court surface. I'd say your average bit of gravel is a stone approx. 1cm in diameter. 24.167.223.0 (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

"Clay" for tennis purposes is defined as "unbound mineral aggregate", which is a fancy way of saying "loose fine dirt". Now, some are more course than others, such as Har-Tru green clay compared to the fine-grained terre battue at Roland Garros, but that doesn't change that the surface is universally finer than what is commonly understood by the word "gravel". oknazevad (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Yellow Clay

What do people know about yellow clay courts? There have been some recent Challenger events in Kazakhstan played on yellow clay. How do they compare to green and red clay? Seville Challenger is played on yellow clay. This sand is called "albero". The same surface as in a bull ring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.12.24.133 (talk) 09:22, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

en tout cas

Why isn't there any mention of en tout cas in this article? Isn't it one of the most basic and wide-spread clay based surfaces in use? I grew up playing on it! Paul Roberton (talk) 14:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed ... I grew up in Australia during the 50s & 60s playing on en tous cas courts, although all the ones I played on now seem to have artificial surfaces. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.42.30.20 (talk) 07:18, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"The most successful female player on clay"

I understand that this page is probably maintained by people from the USA, but the section dealing with "The most successful female player on clay" needs more balance. Serena Williams is a great player and whoever contributed the long piece about her on this page is certainly an ardent fan, but there is a long list of women players who have better records on clay. Henin and Evert, for example, should be among the first mentioned and there are good reasons for giving them more space than Williams. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.129.83.19 (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Alternative name

Is a clay court the same as an ant bed tennis court? If so, a redirect and brief mention in the article might be appropriate. - Shiftchange (talk) 03:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

"Ant bed" (really crushed termite mounds) is a form of clay, in that the ITF definition of "unbound mineral aggregate" is fulfilled. I modified the lead a bit to mention the technical definition in passing to account for such unless common forms of clay. oknazevad (talk) 03:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

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variants

• yellow clay (Challenger events in Kazakhstan)
• blue clay (madrid masters had blue clay) Setenzatsu (talk) 17:50, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The Madrid thing was a marketing gimmick, and a one off. It would be undue to include it. The yellow clay in Kazakhstan is really the same as red clay, just that the bricks used as a source have less iron oxide in them resulting in a lighter color. Sort of interesting. It also pretty trivial. oknazevad (talk) 00:38, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Regardless. This is supposed to be encyclopedia (contains relevant things), not pick and choose. Madrid turned out to be a one off, but only because of the threats of future boycotts from some of the top players. If yellow is almost the same as red, then you just put yellow clay as a variation of red clay. It's not like some god forsaken village has blue or yellow court. These courts are/were a part of professional tours, ergo are relevant. I didn't know that info about yellow clay. I bet a lot of people don't. The information here (with encyclopedic value) is not that it's trivial court but that " the bricks used as a source have less iron oxide in them resulting in a lighter color" so the court with the same characteristics as red clay has lighter colour. Setenzatsu (talk) 08:15, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I added a short note to the red clay section about the color varying, because that's really all it is. Despite the naming of the varieties, color isn't really the determining factor, but what material they are made from. oknazevad (talk) 13:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)