Clay Court "Equipment"
In the past, players used to change many aspects of their “equipment” when they competed on clay courts such as the red clay at Roland Garros. For example, many players used to play with tennis sneakers that had a herringbone tread or other pattern that supposedly had better grip on the clay dirt. Players now compete in the same tennis sneakers on all surfaces except for on grass courts. In fact, you probably have noticed many players sliding across hard courts. The speed of the
tennis varies on clay as it does on hard courts depending on the surface itself, e.g. green Har-Tru courts in the United States usually play faster than red clay courts in Europe and South America. The brand and type of tennis balls also has a subtle effect on the speed of play on all surfaces, but livelier balls can really have a an impact on clay courts. As a result, players nowadays sometimes change their strings and/or subtly adjust their string tension when they compete on clay. In a sense, tennis professionals are similar to fine-tuned automobiles... they need to be perfectly primed to deal with the conditions of play… regardless of the surface.
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