I agree. A lot of its issues had raised due to poor sanitation system of Madrid masters And the salt added upon the surface making it so fking slippery that no clay coart player could get a decent result on it.(I mean wtf Nadal and Djokovic were in their primes and fked up)
@@devapavan-u9y Even in this match you can see both of them struggle to change direction or accelerate at times. It is particularly jarring to see roger look off balanced so often, when is generally extremely well-balanced. The speed of the court on this surface was greater than normal allowing aggressive players to be successful. Verdasco and Tipsarevic who beat rafa and novak went for it and won. All of these factors made it play more like grass as generally whoever got ahead in the rally would win due to the difficulty of moving and defending. As cool as it looks, that is not what clay court tennis is about.
Watching this - it is so much easier to visually pick up the ball as it contrasts well on the lovely blue...should bring it back-I bet they would increase their tv ratings by 10-20%!
Yeah I guess players complained but damn it's a way better viewer experience. I skip watching most clay matches, it's hard on the eyes and not enjoyable
My biggest regret is that I could have followed his games throughout his career, but at that time I was not interested in tennis. I only started following the championships in 2017. So I followed him for a few years, when he didn't offer the best performance.
Bro I understand why Roger is great but I can't ignore the fact that this surface prefered grass and indoor hard coart players I mean literally the semifinal final line up was full of those kindnof players. So technically this doesn't count as clay. (I mean I am not taking credit away from Roger. With a surface so slippery he still managed to move well.)
@@devapavan-u9y Technically it doesn't count as clay? What does it require to "technically" count as clay. I'd have thought the fact that it is, in fact, a clay court would be enough, so curious about your criteria.
@@zweigackroyd7301 I meant that it was so fast and slippery it can't be counted as a normal clay coart and must be called blue clay instead. I mean I should not have said technically but yeah. It could have been a different surface all together. ,(although I wouldn't have wanted it to be a masters 1000 it would have still been cold to have it as a 250 or 500)
@@devapavan-u9y Is it really inherently more slippery, or was that a fault of supply? It is just dyed, so does the dye make it slippery? If so, too bad - I like the way it looks
even if federer played well after changing his racquet to a bit bigger one, I still miss his blastering forehand with his small racquet until 2013. The change of racquet made his backhand better. which made rafa to struggle a lot. but his win plan against djokovic, which is just smashing forehand against djoker, has gone. I really miss this version of roger. there will be no other roger.
Many people say that but I disagree. For me it's the second best of the 21st century (stop saying every time "in history"), the best is 2009. Probably the season with the most Classics (Nadal Verdasco AO, Federer Nadal AO, Nadal Djokovic Madrid, Soderling Nadal RG, Federer Haas RG, Federer del Potro RG, Federer Roddick Wimbledon, Federer del Potro US Open...), but also a season of records (Federer winning all the Slams, becoming the only player to win 15 GS, played the 4 GS finals...) and surprises (Nadal loss at RG, del Potro winning the US Open, Davydenko winning the ATP Finals...). 2012 is still one the best season ever for sure!
One of the most beautiful tennis courts we ever had. Not to mention the ball was clearly much more visible! But of course, Nadal (who threatened not to play in the following year) and Djokovic had to complain, and they reverted the court to traditional red clay in 2013. Nevertheless, this was one of the best master tournaments of the decade. Really exciting and full of nice matches.
Remember when Nadal between every hour of this tournament pouting and threatening to never return, while Federer and Serena stayed cool and played TENNIS, not games and politics? Oh and they won the tournament...
It was slippery and injury prone. Someone's game which thrives on speed, endurance, stretching would've been disastrous if this court continued. That amounts to 50%+ players on tour. If the slipperyness was controlled I'm sure Nad and Djo both have kicked 99% of tour's rear.
Same happened for David Ferrer, he was a great player but Federer always won against him. 17 matches, 17 defeats for David. Only 2 finals but most of them in QF and SF of Master1000 titles, sick.
@@TaekiGaming The dominance of three players in the last couple of decades really does mean that some truly exceptional players got less notice than they might have if they had been born a little earlier.
@TvRFReloaded You know nothing about tennis at all. Federer's backhand has always been his weakness, his titles do not change that. By your logic Djokovic must have the best forehand, backhand, serve, net game etc. just because he has the most grand slam titles.
It's literally the opposite. People complained it was sticky. This makes it easier to be aggressive and finish points quicker. It's why this is the only clay court final federer made post 2009 and one of the only ones berdych ever made
@@patrickbateman1660 Wasn't the majority of complaints of stickiness during the early rounds when it was raining like crazy and the blue clay became lumpy when wet? In this match it looks very dry and slick
I don't know why people keep thinking like it was another type of surface when in reality it was just regular dyed clay. The only problem was they couldn't make much of it in time, and therefore the court became more slippery. What we actually needed were Masters played on har-tru/green clay (IW & Miami).
Back in the 90s yeah, but they've gotten rid of it and madly enough Federer was the one who got the last carpet court ATP tour title changed to yet another hardcourt one. It was one of his most successful surfaces early in his career too, I felt it would've made the game a lot more interesting.
Yeah if it was only the color change people wouldn’t have minded but it was mostly due to how the court was way more slippery than it was supposed to be and completely changed the play style on the aurface
Yeah but it just means he waentbqble to adapt. Obviously the year after they would've perfected it but djokovic and nasal bitched and that was the end of it.@@muscy2637
@@muscy2637 exactly, the tourney director admitted he added too much crushed glass, making it a tad slippery, it had nothing to do with the color itself, but instead, big baby Nadal (who has plenty of other red clay tourneys to moan about) refused to return unless they changed back. He attempted to have them change the Year End Championships to clay, too, even though that would totally upend the balance of the calendar. He is so narcissistic, entitled and has such a false humility about him, I'll never understand his fans....
Honestly blue clay should’ve stuck around. People complained it was causing bad bounces when in reality it had nothing to do with that. Shame they got rid of it after Rafa said he’d never play Madrid again
@@_jiwi2674yes leave blue clay...not having even one M1000 on grass is an absolute shame for the sport..it would have easily added atleast 10 masters titles to roger's name...
More to the point, if a preponderance of matches weren't on clay, the balance would be different. Both obviously great on multiple surfaces, but if you had an even number of top tournaments by surface, the story would be different indeed!
@@_jiwi2674 exactly, it is beyond my understanding! there was a time when all tournaments were on grass, now it is hardly 2 3 main tournaments with 1 of them being Wimbledon. Why does AO, RG, and US Open get a long series of tournaments including atleast 2 3 masters 1000 and a couple of 500s as well, but Wimby is rushed into right after Rg without much build-up. Never understood this, Grass is so beautiful to watch, I'm damn sure a M100 Grass tournament will get more viewership than any other tournament. And honestly, there are tournaments like Halle, Stuttgart, etc. why not just convert them to M1000? does not make sense
The blue clay of Madrid 2012 aka the tine Rafa and Novak had a fit and declared they wouldn't return to the tournament if Tiriac kept the slippery blue clay.😒☹ And Roger said, "What's all the fuss about?" 🤣
This blue cay was awesome, its a shame that only because nadal Lose and cry about it, blaming the surface, back when nadal used to put his loses on injury or something else
I don't think you can call him the king of blue clay when there was only one blue edition. Pretty sure he would not have been able to win it every single year after that in order to really be established king of blue clay. Other than that, great tournament, no doubt.
