Wednesday’s player quotes about the blue clay courts being used at this year’s Madrid Open:
Rafael Nadal
I played much better than I expect…the (blue) court … doesn’t make you feel comfortable. It’s difficult, hard to attack and come back to defend. You just have to try and adapt.
I can’t play with grass shoes, we play with what we have to. We have to adapt.
The court is a difficult court, it’s very slippery and it makes supporting movements and getting back to defend very tough.
But the only thing we can do now is turn the page and we are not going to get the red courts back tomorrow so we have to adapt to the blue courts and the conditions as well as possible and hope for a change next year.
David Ferrer
Well it was a little bit difficult to adapt at the beginning but it’s normal, it’s the first match. It’s always difficult. Then I won the first set by a small margin. In the second one I was able to play more calmly and better and I’ve left with good feelings in the end.
The court is a little bit slippery but they are doing everything they can to stop it being that slippery. This is something we all know and there’s nothing to say about it.
I don’t think it is a matter of criticizing, we are just saying what there is. I don’t know exactly what Novak said, I’m just saying that it is a little bit slippery and they are trying to do everything they can to fix it. I have talked to Manolo and Carlos Moyá and I know that they are trying to solve it and that they are looking for solutions. So, what you can do? It’s not a matter of criticizing, it’s a matter of going into the court and trying to play as well as possible.
John Isner
Most of the time the ball bounces higher on clay which is good if you’re tall. I guess the one difficult thing for taller players is getting out of the corners and when you get put out wide, getting back over to the middle….. especially on these courts it’s pretty tough to play defense. I think clay is a good surface for me. I just didn’t play particularly well today. That has nothing to do with the courts, I just didn’t play well.
Milos Raonic
Milos Raonic
I call it surf clay, some call it Avatar. It’s ok, it’s different. Quite a bit different from red clay.
Roger Federer photo by Matthew Stockman of Getty Images
Roger Federer
It was slippery at the back. I didn’t have much confidence.
These are some of the fastest courts on tour, I expected that a few shots would decide the match, that’s what it was like back in the days of (Pete) Sampras, (Boris) Becker and (Stefan) Edberg.