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It's the dirty little secret of tennis players who compete on the kind of red clay being used at the Paris Olympics: Keeping clothes — especially white socks — and footwear clean while running around on what’s really dust from crushed red bricks is absolutely impossible.
“The socks are the worst. The clothing is fine. But shoes and socks are the worst. You have to change a lot," said Elina Svitolina, a bronze medalist for Ukraine at the Tokyo Games three years ago. "After the clay-court season, everything goes into the (trash), and you need fresh ones.”
Svitolina travels with 40 pairs of socks when the tour takes players through a European clay circuit that generally runs from April through the end of the French Open in June. This year, there is a chance for even more lamenting about laundry and white outfits that turn rust-colored: The Summer Games tennis competition wraps up Sunday at Roland Garros, the same facility in the southwest section of the City of Light that hosts the annual Grand Slam tournament.
“I used to think it was cool, the first couple of times I played on red clay — you get your socks all dirty. I was out there trying to get them extra dirty,” Tommy Paul, an American who was a semifinalist at the Australian Open last year and played in the third round in Paris on Wednesday, said with a laugh. “It’s just part of the game. As long as you’re not wiping out in the middle of a match when you’re all sweaty — then it’s all over you. That sucks. But I’ve only had one wipeout on the clay so far this year, so I'm pretty happy with that.”
There are plenty of players who, for other reasons, prefer competing on grass courts, like those used at Wimbledon, or hard courts, such as at the U.S. Open or Australian Open.
Clay courts — sometimes referred to by players simply as “the dirt” — can be tricky. The slowness and grit can dull the speediest serves and most powerful groundstrokes. That can create lengthier points and extended matches, upping the stamina needed to succeed. Also problematic for some is the slipperiness of the surface, which demands precise footwork and requires sliding into shots.
And yet this is the way two-time Grand Slam semifinalist Maria Sakkari of Greece looks at things: “It’s a lot easier to play on clay than to get your socks washed, that’s for sure.”
Sakkari took a brief break from this season's clay swing and went home to Monaco, where she tried washing her clothes.
It did not go well.
“I had all my white socks with all of my white clothes. I put extra detergent. I washed it for three hours. I made sure it was hot water so it would get washed really well,” she said. “But it's a very tough challenge.”
When they're at events run by the professional tours, players can take advantage of laundry services provided at individual tournaments. Put your stuff in a bag and get it back washed and folded, usually at no charge.
At the Olympics, there is a similar setup in the athletes village.
But those options don't always get rid of the clay. So athletes develop their own solutions.
“I have a kind of a trick to wash socks with a special powder to make them more white,” Svitolina said. “You need to put them in the water with baking soda and vinegar and let them soak for an hour — and then you wash them regularly.”
This is not a new phenomenon, of course. Clay has been used since the 1890s at what is now called the French Open.
Chris Evert, who won seven of her 18 Grand Slam titles in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s, remembers trying to figure out how to look presentable on court.
“I probably was the type that brought, like, 14 pair of socks to a tournament,” Evert recalled. “All I know is that it was a mess.”
When she turned pro as a teenager, Evert would travel with her mother, who tried to help.
“She just soaked the socks every night. I remember she did it by hand. She would wash them in the sink and scrub them with something — a brush or something,” Evert said. “But then, once I earned a little money, we just sent them out to get cleaned.”
Look closely enough at a tennis player's uniform after, or even during, a match on clay, and it will be dotted with flecks of the stuff.
And it's not just on everyone's clothes.
“If you fall once, it’s over: The clay is everywhere on you," said Marta Kostyuk, a Ukrainian who was slated to play in the Olympic quarterfinals Wednesday. "I find it on my neck, in my hair, places where I was like, ‘Whoa, how did it get there?’”
