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| Olympic tennis players return to red clay of Paris' Roland Garros after Wimbledon's grass | | | Agencies
PARIS, July 17: The competition surface doesn't change for most Olympic sports. A pool's a pool. A track's a track. A wrestling mat's a mat. And so on. Tennis? That's a whole other story, with tournaments contested on clay, hard or grass courts - and now there's a shift for the Paris Games.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the tennis competition at an Olympics will be held on red clay, which means players who recently made the adjustment from the dirt at the French Open in early June to grass at Wimbledon in early July will need to reverse course again in short order.
The "terre battue" at Roland Garros used for the French Open hosts Olympic matches starting on July 27 - two weeks after Wimbledon wrapped up with singles titles for Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain - and the transition back to that site is more concerning to some athletes than others.
"That'll definitely be interesting. But everyone's kind of doing it. We'll all be in the same boat," said Jessica Pegula, an American ranked in the top 10 who is expected to play singles, women's doubles with U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff and perhaps mixed doubles, too. "I usually don't struggle too much with switching. And I like how the courts play there.
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