Yeah, the wear patters are different. Much less wear near the net. I watched a match a few years ago and the commentators were superimposing the old wear patters on to the new ones. Stark. Wished I saw that.
Honestly, I'd be psyched to play on old or new grass. I have to sort that out. Yeah, the astroturf sucked. I think I know what you mean about the indoor surface. Kind of a rubberized cork type thing? Yup. And we have a club around here that we play once a year that has indoor courts that whatever the hell they were originally, they play like a polished basketball court--really dislike. The indoor place I belonged to never changed out the surface even when holes started to develop so I stopped playing there unless the weather was so bad that it was the only place we could play. Eventually the place went out of business because the owners were so cheap.
Clay is my absolute favorite. I play on it a couple times a week. My club is the synthetic clay (not red/brown) but my friend has red clay. Victor Pecci is my all-time favorite clay court player and remember his battles at the French and a couple other red clay tournaments. I'd highly recommend it. Probably not as easy on the body as grass, but much easier on the legs than hard courts. And a great workout. You'd adjust to it and play more consistent when you realized there is no payoff in going for massive, low percentage winners because it is a lot tough to hit through your opponent. Because Hawaii has so many asphalt courts, I honed my game for serve and volley so woulda been quite the challenge for me to sit back and slug it out. Still, I would have loved the chance to try it once.
jimbud wrote:
