I think Dootsiez has a good point about the ball being easier for us to see on t.v. against the blue, but I’m with you – red is beautiful!

Rafa’s grumpiness is awesome – I wish he’d speak up more! Maybe with age – Roger’s become more honest/irritable with the press in recent years.

Still, I just picture Rafa covered in blue clay like a muscular smurf and think. . .oh, no!

Now, about Rafa sounding like an grumpy 80 year-old, I’m not too worried. He sometimes has these fits, and they usually don’t hurt his game. I find it endearing, he’s a very good-natured kid, even his occasional grumpiness is quite sweet.

Youtube has spoken. I might actually be able to find the ball for once. Red clay makes it friggin hard to see the ball when you haven’t got your own HD plasma screen or home cinema.

Yeah, I think Rafa’s pretty much on the ball with everything he said. I do find it interesting how grouchy he is about Madrid in general, though. Especially the complaints about bad bounces and a disorganized feel – something tells me that Ion Tiriac and Tournament Director Manolo Santana are not too happy with their golden boy right now.

I did see the new haircut – it just looks like a trim. Not that big a deal – no shaved head, luckily.

In terms of the altitude, Roger was saying today that the ball bounces higher in Madrid, making spin more important. That shouldn’t be a problem for Rafa, who already has the most rpms on the tour. Roger said he will play a more “attacking” game this week, probably because the conditions would favor Rafa even more from the baseline.

I don’t think Rafa’s necessarily worried about his health – he just doesn’t understand why the last major tournament before Roland Garros is in conditions that require such an adjustment to playing style. But all players will need to adjust, so it shouldn’t hurt him more than anyone else.

There’s too many of these 5th Slam pretenders around – at least let it run two seasons before floating that word about. Not to mention how disrespectful that is to Rome and Monte Carlo, and even Hamburg – a tournament with history dating back to the late 19th century.

Also I’m sorry – but European clay is red; I don’t mind, in fact I quite like the distinction provided by American green clay.

But we already have far too many tournaments played on blue courts – must we now also now add events played on different surfaces to that group?

It was like when the Aussie Open went blue – granted its a hard court event, and I must agree it looks a whole lot better than the green, but I quite liked the distinctiveness – for one thing it made the venue instantly recognisable; kind of quaint too.