Clay court of many colors: How American tennis gets ready for the real deal at home

The sight of the crafty, motivated Yulia Putintseva glowering across the net is a foreboding one for any tennis player, at any time. For Pegula, defending a title at the Charleston Open and playing her first match of one of the biggest transitions in every tennis season, it was even more of a nightmare. “All I kept thinking was, like, ‘We’re into clay-court season’ ,” Pegula said in a news conference, after she had refocused to win 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in three hours and 10 minutes.

“This is really quite the introduction. ” For Pegula, and the dozens of players who choose not to head straight to Europe come the end of the tennis’ calendar’s winter swing on hard courts in Australia, West Asia and North America, being in the U. S.

for the start of clay season feels plenty familiar. The points and matches get slower, your abductor muscles begin to howl from daily sliding around on courts and the dirt starts showing up on socks and in shower drains. Just one thing: There is no red clay here.

Its absence tells a larger story about American tennis , as the sport moves into its annual European tour on the crushed, red brick. The Charleston Open, a WTA 500 event and the longest-standing women-only tennis tournament in North America, is played on green clay, a grainy surface prevalent throughout the southeast United States that many Americans, professional and amateur, are familiar with. At the U.