Madrid's Blue Clay: Will It Tip the Balance of Power in Clay Court Tennis?

It's rare in a sport to witness groundbreaking innovations, especially so in tennis, one of the most tradition-laden of all.

But strange things have happened on the court, and stranger still off it. Only this time, it has happened before all the strangeness has even begun.

The ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid has unveiled its new blue clay, stripping clay court tennis, many have said, of its reverential prerogative—a fearsome battle-red hue.

It's no surprise that the biggest gasps have come from those who have the most to lose from a change; the largest of all coming from clay king himself Rafael Nadal, who has spoken of it as a huge mistake on many occasions. While he comes out looking a champion for the tennis-disenfranchised with comments on the blue clay's break from tradition and jibes at it serving only its creator, Ion Tiriac, Nadal legitimately fears for his clay preparation.

He is, after all, a player most comfortable with rhythm, and this change of colour, and bounce, will only incite even more dissatisfaction. Tennis is a subtle game, and for a superstitious player like Nadal, even a change of colour could disrupt him.

There is, of course, a potential change in bounce quality, as Milos Raonic and Djokovic have hinted at. The blue clay seems to play lower.  Blue is typically the colour of the hard courts, and most often those indoors. Think the ATP 500 tournament in Basel, or the prestigious World Tour Finals in London.

Mostly, it seems, to introduce some colour into a portion of the season in need of it. But the clay-court stretch has never had that problem. Are we into a portion of the season that could determine the standings of the very best players? Certainly.

As trivial then as blue clay might seem, as simply a diversionary circus act that purportedly aids in television viewing, any adverse results on it in the next week (when Madrid starts) will likely be blamed entirely on it. Nadal has the most to be worried in that regard.

Would it aid any of his rivals, though? Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have had the majority of their victories over Nadal on hard courts, and while the blue might imitate concrete, it won't play like it. Madrid's altitude and habitually speedy clay will nevertheless aid them.

We forget, perhaps, that Djokovic is the defending champion, and Nadal may just be worked up over a potential smudge on an otherwise perfect clay record in 2012. A win by Federer, Djokovic or Murray would surely inject some interesting mystery at Rome and the French Open, as well as cast some curious looks at the paradigm-shifting abilities of the blue clay.

Madrid has been at the cutting edge of tennis innovations in the last few years, mostly in being the predictor of momentous changes in the tennis landscape. In 2009 it heralded Federer's remarkable French Open triumph, in 2010 Nadal's re-taking of the No. 1 ranking, and last year, the meteoric conquests of Djokovic (even when he had already made quite a few of those).

This year it will witness, quite literally, a change in the tennis landscape. Be wary that it witnesses a change in its metaphorical counterpart, too.