What The Clay Court Season Has Taught Us So Far
Just under a week of the clay court season remains until the start of the 2015 French Open and the players’ preparations for the second Grand Slam of the year are almost done.
Matches have been played, relevant adjustments have been made and the time has arrived to start focusing completely on all things Roland Garros.
With that in mind, here is a run down of the five things the clay-court season has taught us so far going into the main event in Paris on Sunday.
Novak Djokovic Is The Man To Beat
Unthinkable as it may seem, Rafael Nadal will this year go into the French Open without being the firm favourite in the minds of those in the know.
His sub-par performances have a lot to do with that, but so does the scintillating form of world number one Novak Djokovic.
Roland Garros is the only major that the Serbian superstar is yet to win, but if his clay-court season this year is anything to go by, that is a record he is more eager than ever to put right in his quest to make up ground on Nadal and Roger Federer in the list of all time greats within the sport.
Marin Cilic and Rafael Nadal were put to one side in Monte Carlo by Djokovic, and Tomas Berdych was the victim as the Serb easily won the final to claim his 23rd Masters title.
After taking a break due to fatigue during the Madrid Masters, Djokovic came back in fine style, easing past clay-court specialist David Ferrer to reach the final of Rome before sweeping aside the challenge of Federer in the final to extend his perfect run on the dirt in 2015.
Nadal is short of form, Djokovic is playing the best tennis of his life and has a run of 22 consecutive victories to his name – if the world number one is to ever collect the French Open title, this year certainly feels like his biggest chance to do it.
Rafael Nadal Is There For The Taking
After missing the back end of 2014 with appendicitis it was always going to take time for Rafael Nadal to get back to his best, but what originally seemed like a temporary problem is showing signs of becoming terminal with each passing week.
The King Of Clay has played six competitions on the red dirt this season and has won just one of them – the Argentina Open. In years gone by this statistic would force you into a comedic double take, but not this year.
The Spaniard is simply well short of his brutal best and has admitted to being very low on confidence as well – hardly a recipe for success.
A straight sets loss to Djokovic in the last four of Monte Carlo was followed by a second consecutive defeat at the hands of Fabio Fognini in Barcelona, not long after the Italian had got the better of him in Rio.
Signs of recovery surfaced as he got to the final in Madrid, but Andy Murray, who had never beaten Nadal on clay before, dismissed him without any fuss in a comprehensive straight sets victory to lift the title. Meanwhile, Rome ended at the quarter-final stage with another disappointing loss, this time to Stanislas Wawrinka.
His only tournament victory came when he defeated Juan Monaco in the final of Argentina, but that was a minor positive in what has been a clay-court campaign full of major negatives for the nine-time Roland Garros champion.
It was always going to happen and 2015 is the year in which it perhaps did – Rafael Nadal’s era of dominance on the dirt could well be coming to an end.
Andy Murray Is A Contender
Despite being an Olympic gold medalist, two-time Slam champion and part of a “Big Four” that have dominated the last decade of men’s tennis, Andy Murray has never been considered a real contender to lift the French Open trophy.
However, this year, the feeling is different. Like rival Novak Djokovic, the man from Dunblane is unbeaten on clay in 2015 and looks completely settled with his game.
The romantics will say his recent marriage to Kim Sears has made him a more balanced player on the court, and whether that is true or not is up for debate. One thing cannot be argued, however – this is the best run of form Murray has ever put together on the dirt.
The world number three has won ten consecutive matches in a busy clay-court swing, defeating Philipp Kohlschreiber in a tight final in Munich before dominating Nadal in the final of Madrid, right in front of the Spaniard’s adoring fans.
He may have pulled out of the recent Rome Masters due to fatigue, but don’t let that fool you. Nadal’s problems have been well documented, Djokovic will have the pressure that comes from being the favourite going into a major and Federer is an outside bet at best. Meanwhile, Murray has no pressure going to Paris and is in a good place both on and off the court – he has every reason to fancy his chances of adding the Coupe des Mousquetaires to his trophy collection come June 7th.
The Women’s Tournament Is Anyone’s To Win
While it is hard to see outside of three or four players on the men’s tour winning the French Open at the start of June, it is just as difficult to narrow it down to three or four contenders in the women’s game for this year’s Roland Garros.
So far there have been seven clay-court tournaments on the WTA Tour, with seven different winners.
The two Masters 1000 competitions, held in Madrid and Rome respectively, were taken by the in-form Petra Kvitova and the returning-to-form Maria Sharapova.
One glaring omission from the title-holders is world number one Serena Williams, who was knocked out in Spain by eventual winner Kvitova and had to pull out in Italy due to an injury that was hindering her serve.
Williams and Sharapova were the two overwhelming favourites going into last year’s tournament, but neither of them have really been at their best in the clay-court season thus far, while the likes of Kvitova, Simona Halep, Caroline Wozniacki, Carla Suarez Navarro, Angelique Kerber and Karolina Pliskova all look to be hitting form at exactly the right time.
The ladies French Open tournament has always been virtually impossible to predict, and this year is certainly no different.
2015 Is Not To Be Bouchard’s Breakthrough Year
It was during the early stages of the 2014 season that Canadian youngster Eugenie Bouchard really made her presence known on the WTA Tour.
Following impressive runs to the semi-finals of the Australian and French Opens, where she was to lose to the eventual winner on both occasions, many predicted that 2015 would be the year that she took the tennis world by storm.
Those people, including this observer, couldn’t have been more wrong if her results so far in the season are anything to go by.
The ambitious 21-year-old was nowhere near her best coming into the clay-court swing and she began her time on the dirt in horrendous fashion, at one point going on a six-match losing streak, suffering defeat at the hands of Barbora Strycova in the first round of Madrid and Suarez Navarro in the second round of Rome.
No momentum, no fear factor, no confidence – the 2014 French Open was a brilliant tournament for Bouchard – you wouldn’t back this year’s edition to follow such a similarly romantic path.