PARIS — At 12u all season on the Hologic WTA Tour, Madison Keys has become something of a clay connoisseur.
The 29-year-old American recently described the subtle differences in the soil with the burnt sienna that blanketed the courts in Madrid and Rome last month. The clay at the altitude of Spain, he said, is powdery, almost slippery. In Rome, closer to sea level, it is rougher, sandier, denser and stickier.
“But at the end of the day,” Keys said, “it’s the same for everybody.”
It sounded more like a wine clinic about terroir — the natural environment, including soil, topography and climate — that determines how grapes grow and, ultimately, how wine tastes.
At Roland Garros, where the main draw begins on Sunday, the terroir plays more like Rome. About 80 tonnes of red clay have been shipped for the coming fortnight. It comes from a single factory in Oise, about 100 kilometers north of Paris. Back in the 1880s, the Renshaw brothers covered their withered grass courts in Cannes with crushed terracotta, and this has evolved into today’s configuration: an 80cm pile of crushed gravel, coal tailings, white limestone — topped by one to two millimeters of crushed brick.
The dichotomy of clay
Clay is the most physically demanding surface and, at the same time, the most open to creativity.
Rallies are usually longer because the clay dampens the power. And, over the course of seven games, the balls pick up more and more dirt, making them heavier and harder to hit down the field. Slices are rewarded on clay and, with grip generally bleak, drop shots pay bigger dividends.
Many players will tell you they think Roland Garros is the hardest Grand Slam to win, and the numbers back it up. There are only four champions still active — three-time winner Iga Swiatek, Barbora Krejcikova, Jelena Ostapenko and Simona Halep. Wimbledon has five active winners, the Australian Open six and the US Open seven.
Artists shape the clay into vessels and sometimes sculptures. In the sport of tennis, it is the clay that shapes these artists. You can see their traces — sometimes smooth slides, other times sharp, jagged spikes — on the canvas.
Jessica Pegula, who finished the 2023 season ranked among the Top 5 in both singles and doubles, grew up playing on green. It’s not as nimble and slow as red clay — but as players said this year in Charleston, it’s the transition from hard courts to red.
Even as a young player, Pegula was comfortable moving around the green, but it took time to figure out what worked. Clay is not as simple as hard courts. you need to think more about making points, use high speed balls more often. As she implemented these tactics — and her overall game improved — Pegula began to see success on clay.
“I became a better tennis player, getting the ball earlier, using the angles a little more, changing the tempo a little more,” she said. “And that can really help you on the dirt.”
More than the physical challenges of clay, Pegula said the biggest obstacle was the mental one.
“You just accept that you’re not always going to have big bounces,” he said. “Maybe the circumstances are a little weird — but you just have to figure it out.
“For me, that was the biggest change. Like, “Okay, I’m not going to hate clay season.” You just have to go in and embrace it.”
More time and space
When you grow up playing in the dirt, like Ons Jabeur did in Tunisia, there’s no stress, no second-guessing. The key, he said, is breaking down the mechanics of a single shot into three distinct phases.
“Try to slide first, work on the slide,” Jabeur said. “And then try to slide and hit. When you get it down, slide, hit, and return to the middle of the field. This is.”
“Sounds difficult,” replied one reporter.
Jaber shook her head emphatically.
“It’s not,” he said. “I’ll teach you in five minutes on the field — it’s easy.”
Jabeur is not a power player, so she appreciates the extra time clay gives her to recover. It’s also less demanding on her chronically painful knee. Clay gives her diverse skill set a little more time and space to breathe.
Elina Svitolina has won a pair of titles in four different tournaments — two of them on clay. She took Rome in back-to-back years, 2017-18, and Strasbourg in 2020 and 2023. Like Swiatek, she moves so fluidly, so fluently, sometimes it doesn’t seem like the surface is shifting beneath her.
“You always have to be on the front foot, your balance always has to be forward,” Svitolina said. “Because with hard courts, if you make a mistake, you’re OK because you hold onto your shoes a lot. Here, you have less grip, so you slide a little more here and there.
“You can lose your balance and end up leaning back. That’s why you must always be in front, take small steps to give yourself the best chance to slide and be ready for the shot. So movement is the key.”
Patience is critical
In today’s era of fast-hitting tennis, clay is the leveling factor.
This may explain some of the surprising results in history at Roland Garros. Anastasia Myskina (2004), Francesca Schiavone (2010), Ostapenko (2017) and Krejcikova (2021) all won their first, and so far only, major titles in Paris.
Patience — and the ability to adjust your game to the slower, extended rallies — are critical.
Maria Sharapova stepped onto the grass at Wimbledon as a 17-year-old and won her second and third major titles at the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. Four years later, she completed her personal Grand Slam by winning at Roland Garros. 2014 gave her a pair of clay titles, the most for her on any surface.
Aryna Sabalenka, a power player first and foremost, also made necessary changes. Her winning percentage on clay (70.0) is now almost the same as her success percentage on hard courts.
Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam hard-court singles champion, won three matches in Rome and pushed her career mark over .500 to 25-24.
Swiatek, the other active player with four players, grew up in Poland playing year-round on clay. It’s always felt comfortable and mostly effortless, which is why it’s her favorite surface.
“I wouldn’t say there was a learning curve because that was my style of play,” Swiatek said. “I obviously needed some time to work on it. But I don’t remember doing practices in terms of the foot on the ground. It’s always been very natural to me.”
Which may explain her three Roland Garros titles before the age of 23rd birthday, which falls on May 31. Swiatek lost in the Stuttgart semi-finals to Elena Rybakina but is the favorite to lift her fourth French Open trophy in June. And don’t forget: This is a bonus year for clay. Tennis at the Summer Olympics will be played at Roland Garros.
Coco Gauff is most famous for winning last year’s US Open, but it’s easy to forget that her first major final came at Roland Garros in 2022. Still just 18, she lost to Swiatek. Gauff’s record at the French Open is an astounding 15-4 and she has reached at least the quarterfinals three years in a row.
“Honestly, I don’t feel like I had a big learning curve,” Gauff said. “For me, it was just learning how to do better on other surfaces. All my first championships except the Grand Slams were on clay.”
Indeed, she gained a lot of attention in 2018 when she won the junior girls’ title at Roland Garros, defeating American Caty McNally in three sets. At 14, Gauff was the youngest player in the draw — and the youngest champion by a quarter of a century.
Just “rub it in”
While much is made of the transition from hard courts to clay, there is another layer here that is not visible to the naked eye.
Martina Navratilova, who has won an astonishing total of 59 major titles across three disciplines, remains a keen observer of the game. She will be in Paris as an analyst for the Tennis Channel.
“Sure, the clay is red, but you’re talking about very different sets of conditions,” she said recently from her home in south Florida. “Stuttgart, it’s indoors, very static. Madrid, it’s at altitude and the ball is flying. Rome and Paris are more normal.”
The weather, especially in Paris, can make things far from normal. The latest 10-day forecast showed possible rain on six of those days. If it’s sunny, the balls move more freely. If it’s cloudy and cooler, things slow down. Well, if it rains, sometimes they play.
The solution? String tension adjustment.
“We didn’t have that option when I was playing — you couldn’t set your racquet in 15 minutes,” Navratilova said. “Today, they are constantly struggling with the strings.
“Another thing, especially for older players, you have to change your gameplan because you can’t recover as quickly as you can on hard courts. For me it was more difficult to reach the net. Once they push you wide, you can’t fight back to get the next volley.”
However, for those players who are accustomed to making short points, it is important to remember what got you there.
“It is important to build the point and not rush,” said Maria Sakkari. “But at the same time, you have to be aggressive. Those openings just don’t come around that often.”
Taylor Townsend was born in Chicago, where clay courts were hard to come by. But when she moved to Georgia at age 10, her tennis academy had green clay courts. Not surprisingly, some of her best results have come on dirt.
Last year, she and Leylah Fernandez reached the doubles final at Roland Garros.
“The biggest thing is trying to stop,” Townsend said. “Once you get the hang of it, everything is a little easier. You know going in, it’s going to be bigger rallies, which gives me a chance to hit the spots.
“Their key is adopting an extroverted mindset.”