By Owen Lewis
After the fortnight of fiery excitement at Melbourne Park, and the closely-packed Indian Wells and Miami tournaments, battle is waged on clay courts for ten weeks. Matches on the dirt lay bare the games of each player. Whereas on grass a player hitting only serves in a game isn’t tremendously unusual, clay often forces athletes to move well, exhibit patience in rallies, and slide to get into position nearly every point.
In 2009, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic contested the final of the first big tournament of the clay season: the Monte-Carlo Masters. The show court in Monte-Carlo is among the prettiest on tour; the rich orange clay that makes up the playing surface contrasts nicely with vibrant blue waters surrounding one side of the stadium.
Monte-Carlo is a beautiful gladiator arena that houses fierce struggles. The first three games of the deciding set of the 2009 Monte-Carlo final lasted a staggering 41 minutes. The highlight of the interval was Nadal running down a beautifully executed drop volley on the stretch from Djokovic and guiding a crosscourt forehand winner past his opponent at net. Nadal pulled this off on the 38th shot of a rally on break point. As picturesque waters gleamed in the background, Nadal and Djokovic were exchanging grunts and vicious groundstrokes.
Only on clay do such long rallies occur consistently. The surface is the slowest among the trio that make up the tennis circuit, making it more difficult to thread winners through gaps in the opponent’s defense. This stretches out points, and while fewer rallies might end with a dazzling winner, more are earned through grinding, sliding defense.
After the dust (literally) settled from the brutal first three games of the 2009 Monte-Carlo final, Nadal led 2-1, having broken for 2-0 before Djokovic returned the favor to get back on serve. Not disheartened in the least by losing his break advantage, Nadal reeled off the last four games of the match.
The final score was 6-3, 2-6, 6-1, and yet the match lasted for two hours and 42 minutes. The third set, the most lopsided of the lot, required almost an hour of classic clay court tennis to be completed. On April 19th in 2009, Nadal and Djokovic captured the essence of clay during the Monte-Carlo final. They produced competitive games that transcended the score. Marathon rallies captivated the crowd, and winners were a product of either a brave decision to go for the lines, or by opening up the court with a physically taxing, methodically placed series of groundstrokes.
Twenty-six days later, Djokovic and Nadal clashed again, this time in the semifinals of the Mutua Madrid Open. The clay in the Spanish capital is a slightly duller color than the Monte-Carlo dirt, and plays slightly faster. Somehow, they managed to eclipse their Monte-Carlo epic with a three-setter of almost unprecedented length: four hours and three minutes.
The 2009 Madrid semifinal between Nadal and Djokovic deserves far more than a couple hundred words, but as the purpose of this article is to describe the spirit of clay as a surface, it will have to suffice. If the takeaway from Monte-Carlo was that the pair produced attritional matches on clay, Madrid suggested that Djokovic and Nadal were made to play extended matches atop the dirt (though in the future, they would produce amazing struggles on every surface). Djokovic won the first set comfortably, 6-3, Nadal edged a tiebreak in the second set, and the decider came down to another tiebreak. Djokovic held match point at 6-5, 7-6, and 9-8, but Nadal evened the score each time (he hit inside-in forehand winners after long rallies to save the first two match points and struck a service winner to erase the third). Despite Djokovic brilliantly saving a match point of his own, Nadal claimed the tiebreak 11-9, falling to the clay in elation.
One might think that one of Nadal and Djokovic, seemingly addicted to exhausting, enthralling matches on clay, would win the French Open in 2009. Neither made it past the fourth round of the season’s most important tournament. Roger Federer, a player with a more attacking brand than Djokovic or Nadal, took the title in Paris that year. He defeated Nadal in the Madrid final the day after the semifinal epic, and topped Robin Soderling to win his first French Open title.
Why the abbreviated history of the 2009 clay season? It was one of the most interesting dirt swings in recent memory. Djokovic and Nadal were the headline for much of the clay season (the latter defeated the former in the final of the last clay Masters 1000, the Italian Open in Rome), playing terrific tennis, only for another player to grab the biggest clay court prize of the year. Djokovic would win his lone French Open title seven years later, and Federer’s 2009 trophy remains his only one. Nadal has won Roland-Garros 12 times. It’s difficult not to mention Nadal’s name in any sentence including “the French Open”, or even “clay”, such is his dominance on the surface. Djokovic and Federer did well to nab a title each in Paris; many players haven’t been as fortunate.
The French Open is the prize that has remained out of reach for several legends of tennis. Names such as John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Jimmy Connors, and Pete Sampras have secured practically every prestigious trophy besides the Coupe des Mousquetaires. Players who are comfortable on faster courts sometimes seem out of place on clay; their slides aren’t quite as smooth, their heavy serves slowed by the dirt. McEnroe and Edberg have both lost five-set finals on Court Philippe-Chatrier, the show court at Roland-Garros, while Connors and Sampras have never been past the semifinals (the former made the semifinals four times; Sampras has been to the last four once).
The above quartet of incredible tennis players was never quite able to master the French Open. While Court Philippe-Chatrier has housed some matches for the ages, it’s also unforgiving. In the 1984 final, McEnroe took a two-set lead over Ivan Lendl, then had chances to win the third and fourth, but ended up losing his advantage and the match. It was McEnroe’s first French Open final and it would be his last.
Perhaps the harshest match on Phillipe-Chatrier was the 2004 French Open final. Argentines Guillermo Coria and Gaston Gaudio wrestled for possession of the Coupe des Mousquetaires that year, and with Coria leading 6-0, 6-3, 4-3, 40-15 (with Gaudio serving), the match looked to be all but over. But Gaudio managed to level the contest, save two championship points, and win the title with a smooth crosscourt backhand winner (watch highlights of the match here). The final has gone down as one of the biggest chokes in tennis history. Coria, a terrific clay court player, was never able to mentally recover from losing the match, and problems with his game and his confidence hounded him until the end of his career.
Clay is anathema for many players whose serve is their biggest weapon. Granted, John Isner stunned the tennis world by taking Nadal to five sets in the first round of the 2011 French Open, but he’s never made the quarterfinals in Paris. Ivo Karlović, another athlete known for his imposing serve, has only gone as far as the third round. It’s typically less powerful, more physical players that win Roland-Garros. Nadal is 6’1”, and hits fewer aces than just about everyone in the top 100, but on clay his incredible topspin forehand and his defensive abilities more than make up the deficit. Federer, Djokovic, and Stanislas Wawrinka, the other three players to have won the French Open in the last fifteen years, all have stronger serves, but their games are well-rounded enough to engage in the skidding rallies that clay demands.
Philippe-Chatrier has ample space beyond the lines of the court, allowing players like Nadal and Djokovic to defend to their heart’s content. The clay season draws the defensive side out of athletes. One-two punches are far more difficult to execute on dirt; often what would be a winner on grass is returned deep, discouraging another attacking shot and instead leading to a neutral rally. The art of sliding must also be mastered. Djokovic is able to slide on all three surfaces (very few others can slide on grass, but he executes it to great effect), but it’s most widely done on clay.
Roland-Garros is not taking place in its normal time slot this year. The COVID-19 outbreak has forced the French Open to reschedule for late September. A roof has been installed on Phillipe-Chatrier, and if the tournament happens this year the first indoor matches at Roland-Garros will likely take place. But as many things are changing, the clay stays the same. It is sleeping patiently, eagerly dreaming about future rallies to rival the 38-shot slugfest between Nadal and Djokovic at Monte-Carlo in 2009. When the tour resumes, the waves will still be lapping gently around Monaco, Phillipe-Chatrier will still be an expansive canvas for defensive painting, and the clay will be ready to absorb the most forceful of shots.
Thanks for reading! Stay safe, wash your hands, and practice social distancing!