Wimbledon 2024: From clay to grass, the most hellish transition in tennis | Tennis | Sports

“Water! Water!”.

At around noon, London removes the previous day’s lantern – pleasant 25 degrees and clear skies, an illusion – and returns the original scene, the essence: the clouds discharge and spray, the wind stirs the treetops, squirrels and foxes They hide and the umbrellas open like poppies in the 19th district, so Carlos Alcaraz and his team have to quickly leave the training tracks to take cover and adapt to the harsh British weather; not without my rain, motto of a tournament that starts today (2:30 p.m., Movistar+) with the Murcian as the deserved protagonist of the opening, while last year he triumphed for the first time and tradition now grants him the privilege of opening the wonderful court central. It will be against Mark Lajal, an Estonian from his fifth year (2003, 21 years old), 262nd in the world.

“Maybe they consider me more of a favorite than last year, but I try to take it differently; In the end I lost at Queen’s (preparatory), and that shows you how difficult it is to play here, on grass, to move well, to realize how to act… Anything can happen,” he concedes, wary, aware of the difficulty of mastering a record that has historically resisted so many figures, and that the story of its sport only offers few exceptions. In the men’s territory, only four players achieved success at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year: an extraterrestrial called Björn Borg (1978, 1979 and 1980), Rafael Nadal (2008 and 2010), Roger Federer (2009) and Novak Djokovic (2021). In the feminine, the books reflect from the Open Era (1968) to Margareth Court (1970), Billie Jean King (1972), Chris Evert (1974), Martina Navratilova (1982 and 1984) and Serena Williams (2002 and 2015 ).

From clay to grass, two elements so antagonistic and so different. The transition is hellish. There is little time (three weeks, previously two) to reformulate and adapt the automatisms. Nothing to compare. The vast majority got lost along the way. “It is the fastest change of surface, but you have to accept it,” says the number one, Iga Swiatek. earthling of race and who has also managed to unravel the flat code of cement; Not so that of the grass, especially unique, demanding, more treacherous than any other. “It’s very complicated, mentally you have to approach it in a different way. Here we make more mistakes, the ball is lower and goes super fast; It is more important to do well with the first ones. I want to learn to play here,” continues the Pole, who is resisted, for the moment, by a terrain that does not admit doubt or hesitation, no matter how much the debate has lost weight on the Internet to gain it in the funds.

Nadal himself, without going any further, had a hard time unraveling the mystery. Two-time champion of the English great, the Spaniard did not manage to truly control the game on grass until he reached his thirties. And Garbiñe Muguruza, champion in 2017, also attests to this. After reaching the summit, in the four subsequent editions she did not manage to get past the third round and the 2016 shock in Paris was followed by the fall in the second stop in London.

On the progress

“Very few players have a good slice today,” laments Navratilova, the queen of cutting and climbing to the net. Meanwhile, more and more players continue to disappear on a surface that has been losing presence – it disappeared in Australia and New York – until it is reduced to a single calendar month. Therefore, improvisation and adaptation on the fly predominate, and with the exception of Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, the majority of professionals end up run over by the ball, if not stumbled by slips. Asturian Pablo Carreño, a seasoned competitor in sand and cement, knows this well; unrecognizable on the green. Seven participations in Wimledon, seven first rounds.

“I watch videos of what I did last year, I’m not going to lie. I do it to see how I did it,” Alcaraz transmits. “We have to be faithful to our style of play on any surface, although on grass the movement changes a lot. I am a player who normally slides a lot, but here there are others who do it as if it were dirt and I still don’t dare. It is a big change for me. Mobility, being more crouched, not getting up, being focused on every step you take… Grass is details. You have to be focused on every maneuver,” concludes the Spaniard, who would follow in the footsteps of Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Federer and Djokovic if he manages to retain the title in La Catedral. Complicated, there is no doubt.

It is difficult to make predictions in a context that is fertile ground for surprises. In addition to the complexity of the record, Alcaraz must manage for the second time in his career (the previous one was at the US Open in New York last year) the extra pressure due to the status he achieved in the previous edition; Djokovic is confident of a positive response from his knee, but logically without any certainty; and Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev appear as alternatives, both aware that the ambush awaits around the corner. Meanwhile, in the women’s draw the unknowns are even more abundant. Uncontested on clay, Swiatek has never crossed the quarterfinal barrier and the history underlines the unmanageability after Serena’s departure: six different winners in the last six events.

Indeed, this is Wimbledon. Another law.

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