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Peter BodoTennis
When Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem clash on Sunday in the French Open final, the sentimental interpretation will have Nadal, 10 times the champion at Roland Garros and the undisputed “King of Clay,” locking horns with his heir apparent.
It’s a tempting narrative. Thiem is a terrific clay-court player. His game is heavy on forehand topspin and great backhand blasts from behind the baseline. The 24-year-old Austrian already has 10 titles, but all but two of them were collected on clay. But while solid, Thiem hasn’t won a Grand Slam title, nor even a Masters 1000.
The reality is that Nadal is not just greatest and latest in the distinguished line of clay-court titans — he’s probably the last of the breed. Enjoy him while you can, because this king has no successor nor even a kingdom. The dominion he’s had over clay events hides the fact that there’s no longer a subspecies of tennis player worthy of the title “clay-court specialist.”
“Wasn’t the goal to create a one-size-fits-all game?” ESPN analyst and clay-court icon Chris Evert wondered in a recent conversation. “I remember when we used to criticize guys for doing well at the French Open and then not even bothering to play a few weeks later at Wimbledon. Who would do that today?”
The masters of clay who took a pass on Wimbledon included former champions Thomas Muster and Sergi Bruguera. That was before Wimbledon altered its turf courts to make them slower, but that’s just a piece of the story. The other elements are the emergence of a universal style, the increase in the athleticism of the typical player, and the evolution of equipment.
Nadal dominates on clay because the way he plays and his qualities as a competitor are uniquely suited to it. Harold Solomon, a French Open finalist in 1976 and a semifinalist the following year, told ESPN.com: “It’s ridiculous what Nadal has done. Nobody could have predicted a Nadal and nobody would ever teach anyone to play like Nadal. The way he hits the ball, his physicality and intensity … He’s just a one-off.”
Or, as Tennis Channel analyst Justin Gimelstob put it in an interview, “Rafa is essentially a comic book superhero. He’s a perfect storm when it comes to the challenge of winning on clay.”
“Rafa is essentially a comic book superhero. He’s a perfect storm when it comes to the challenge of winning on clay.”
Tennis Channel analyst Justin Gimelstob
Only three other men have won singles titles at Roland Garros during the Nadal era: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka. None of them would ever be confused with a clay-court specialist. David Ferrer, beaten in one French Open final by Nadal, was thought to be a potential force on clay. But Ferrer won only 13 of his 27 ATP Tour titles on clay. That hardly makes him a “specialist.”
So when and why did those clay-court warriors with their weird grips, penchant for suffering through endless rallies, and aversion to the net disappear? There are various theories.
Solomon, now 65 years old, stood 5-foot-6 with a fighting weight of 135 pounds in his heyday. “Back in the ’70s, we played with wooden rackets. In Europe, they often made us use those pressureless balls that came in the box (hitting them was frequently compared to striking rocks). You just couldn’t put balls away to finish points even if you wanted to.”
Back then, the emphasis was on consistency and stamina, Solomon recalled. But he believes that began to change with the emergence of Ivan Lendl. “He was able to take guys like me and physically dominate us,” Solomon said. “He brought a new kind of physicality to the sport, and now the size of the guys, more than anything else, determines what is going on.”
Lendl, 6-foot-2 with long, lean muscles, was a pioneer of cross-training for tennis. He also had a Hall of Fame-caliber forehand and no fear of hitting it inside-out, blazing a trail that almost every great champion would follow.
Changes in equipment also made it much more difficult to succeed with the stamina and consistency that allowed Guillermo Vilas, the greatest of the clay-court specialists, to amass wins and titles that only Nadal would ultimately surpass.
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Juan Martin del Potro says Rafael Nadal’s intensity was too much for him to handle, after losing to the Spaniard 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals at Roland Garros.
Mary Carillo, a former French Open mixed doubles champion and now a television analyst, gives Gustavo Kuerten credit for helping transform the clay game. The Brazilian star was one of the first to experiment with the new polyester strings that make it so much easier to clobber the ball — yet keep it in play.
“I remember [Andre] Agassi saying the strings should be illegal,” Carillo told ESPN.com. “Kuerten won in Paris with those crazy, elastic strokes, using big takebacks and crazy spins. The grab on those strings opened new doors. Kuerten sort of begat Nadal as a guy who could stay 10 feet behind the baseline yet still hit with great power.”
But playing from far back, strings or no strings, quickly became less viable for the vast majority of players. Nadal’s peers in tennis’ Big Four all eschew playing from behind the baseline. They want to move into the court, take charge. The tennis wars have slowly turned into a battle for territory, the object being to get inside the baseline and dictate, usually with the forehand. It’s a far cry from firing long-range potshot at each other the way the best clay-courters once did.
Imagine for a moment that Nadal has been out of the picture for the past dozen years. Clearly Federer, the second-best clay-court player of that period, might have four or five more French Open titles. Djokovic might be good for three or four more as well. Who else? Wawrinka, certainly. Andy Murray? Juan Martin del Potro? Not a single man on this short list can be called anything like a clay-court specialist.
Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras and Federer through most of their greatest years, is now a Tennis Channel analyst. He told ESPN.com that the game has become “homogenized,” and he misses the days when there was greater variety of style, when some players specialized by surface.
“Now the only thing that’s different because of the surface is a player’s movement,” Annacone said. “Even that’s changing. Used to be you just slid on clay; now they’re sliding on hard courts, too. So how different can the movement really be?”
Thiem is a very tough out on clay, yet 21-year-old Alexander Zverev — nobody’s idea of a clay expert — has two clay Masters titles. He recently beat Thiem for the title on Madrid’s clay. Some will always be better on clay than other surfaces, but probably not by that much, nor because of their particular style. There also will be outliers like 5-foot-7 Diego Schwartzman, who made the Roland Garros quarters last week — and won the first set in his match with Nadal.
“I like Schwartzman,” Solomon said. “I never thought we’d see a guy like him doing so well in today’s game.”
Doing well, though, is a lot different than dominating. Not everyone can be king. In tennis, monarchy may be a thing of the past.