How U.S. men's tennis players found their Grand Slam footing on the French Open clay

New York Times

2 days ago

PARIS, ROLAND GARROS — It's sounds like the start of a bad joke.
Two American men walk onto a court at Roland Garros to play a tennis match on red clay. Now, choose your punch line:
Both lose?
At gunpoint?
The golf courses were all closed?
Ask any of the American men still alive and kicking at this year's French Open. They've heard it all their tennis lives, and they will continue to hear it until one of them wins the French Open for the the first time since Andre Agassi ruled the terre battue in 1999.
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Such is life for players reared on the hard courts of California, Florida, Texas, or Washington, D.C. They know that it is a reputation that they have earned, as much as inherited.
'I used to not be very excited to come out here,' said Tommy Paul after his second-round win over Marton Fucsovics. Paul, who actually won the French Open junior title 10 years ago, couldn't translate that comfort into the real deal.
'Three, four years ago, I definitely wasn't super comfortable on the clay. Honestly, everything kind of changed a little bit.'
With more than a week to go in this year's event, 'little' remains the operative word in that sentence. No one would dare predict that an American man is going to be lifting the Coupe des Mousquetaires June 8, but the current generation of American twenty-somethings is still taking promising baby steps in the City of Light.
First, five American men reached the third round for the first time since 1996. When the red brick dust settled on those matches, Paul, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe had advanced to the fourth round, with Tiafoe knocking out fellow American Sebastian Korda. Ethan Quinn, the 2023 NCAA individual men's singles champion, nearly joined them in the last 16 but fell just short, losing in five sets against Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands. Still, three American men in round four is the best result since 1995.
Quinn had caught a lucky break in round one, when 16th seed Grigor Dimitrov injured his leg while in possession of a two-set lead. Dimitrov retired a set later and Quinn went through, where he survived five sets against Alexander Shevchenko of Kazakhstan. In the third round, Quinn was twice up a set on Griekspoor, before the blistered finger and tired legs from going the distance twice in a row got too much.
Shelton caught some fortune too, getting a walkover in the second round from France's Hugo Gaston, the diminutive and underpowered craftsman of clay court tennis. But he'd already outlasted Lorenzo Sonego of Italy, who knows his way around the clay, during his debut on the main stadium court, Philippe-Chatrier, on the opening night.
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This sort of performance is old hat for American women. Serena Williams won the French Open three times. Coco Gauff, Sloane Stephens, and Sofia Kenin have all made the final. Gauff was a semifinalist last year.
There are five American women in the last 16 this year, including Hailey Baptiste, the 23-year-old Tiafoe family protege from Washington, D.C. He describes her as his little sister. His twin brother, Franklin, is one of her coaches. The red dirt is her favorite surface.
'About time,' world No. 3 Jessica Pegula joked, when asked about the success of the American men. The country's collective success — eight players in the fourth round — is a 40-year high.
There are good draws and kismet in this success on the men's side. There is a U.S. broadcaster, in TNT, which is all in on the event, so more people are paying attention. The players' phones are lighting up. The vibes are good.
There is no overnight revolution in the U.S., built on red bricks and slides. But there is 'a little bit' of something different.
'They were taught how to play tennis, not just hit the ball,' said Patrick McEnroe, the former pro and Davis Cup captain who is commentating for TNT this tournament.
McEnroe has a vested interest in selling that version of the story. He played a major role in cultivating this generation of Americans, as the director of player development for the U.S. Tennis Association from 2008 to 2014. He hired Jose Higueras, the Spanish clay-court specialist of the 1970s and 80s, to teach Americans that tennis is more than a game of big serves and forehands. The movement, point construction, patience, angles, spins and height that clay-court tennis requires are the building blocks of a career, not just expertise on one surface.
Nearly two decades after McEnroe's first day in that job, tennis has evolved. The men's game has more power, more speed, more physicality — and more variation, right at the top. Certain tenets still apply. Free points on the serve will be fewer and farther between. A well-placed delivery is better than a booming one. Big swings when pushed out of position won't send the ball sliding through the court like on grass or acrylic; opponents will dig the ball back into the open court.
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And trying to play dress-up as a clay-court specialist for eight weeks of the year is little more than a waste of time.
'I remind myself it's just tennis,' Paul said. 'You're just playing tennis on a different surface. And we're good tennis players. We got to figure it out. I think we're doing a better job of that.'
Paul did plenty of that over four hours Friday afternoon against No. 25 seed Karen Khachanov of Russia, on Court Simonne-Mathieu. Like Paul, Khachanov prefers fast, firm hard courts to clay.
Both players seemed to ignore the fact that they were playing on red dirt for long stretches. But in the fifth set, when everything was on the line, Paul mixed in just enough slices and sharp angles, while Khachanov fell back to his flat, grunting power, which has its limits in these parts.
'I was just trying to win any point any way I could,' Paul said after his second five-set win in a row. 'When I'm offensive, I feel like that's an uncomfortable position for him. That's what it was about. Not too much about the surface, really.'
When Paul was done, Shelton took the court and made a mess of Matteo Gigante, the 23-year-old Italian who survived qualifying and took apart Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 2021 finalist. The 80-degree temperatures sent Shelton's serve into mid-140 mph range. That is useful on any surface.
But Shelton is also learning how to run fast with small steps. He is figuring out how to slice his lefty backhand in both directions. He's sliding into shots, rather than through them. He needed every bit of that when Gigante took the initiative in the third set.
'Whoever's moving the best is going to be playing the best,' Shelton said ahead of the tournament.
After his win over Gigante, he said he is also finding ways to combine those clay-court skills with his aggressive identity.
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'Not just thinking I have to be 20 feet behind the baseline and play high and heavy, like the traditional clay-court game. I can still play my game style and be effective on clay.'
It's entirely possible that this generation of American tennis players are just better athletes than the ones before. Sam Querrey, another TNT analyst, said during an interview at Roland Garros that he didn't start learning how to slide until he was 17. More than a decade later, he was still learning.
'I remember going to my coach and saying: 'At this point I'm not going to get it,'' Querrey said. 'Why do we keep trying to do this?'
Querrey said when he looks at today's Americans, he seem them playing their preferred styles, with slight adjustments. When in Europe, do as the Europeans do — just not too much.
That's about where Quinn landed.
Brian Garber, his day-to-day coach, said he has told Quinn not to change the way he plays. He should serve well and hunt for forehands and believe that he is going to love clay and be good on it. Brad Stine, Garber's boss and Paul's coach, has given similar advice to his player. But he has also drilled into Quinn that he might have reset a point with a lob, or a high, deep topspin shot, four or five times. Going for broke from behind the baseline when in trouble generally gives an opponent a kill shot.
'Accepting resetting points is so massive,' Garber wrote in a text message.
He also had Quinn turn his back on his own.
'My guys are practicing with South Americans and Europeans the entire time on the clay,' Garber said. 'Americans with Americans doesn't help. You aren't seeing the type of tennis you're going to play, and you get rewarded in practice when you shouldn't because the other guy doesn't know what he's doing on clay either.'
The biggest surprise of the fortnight has to be Tiafoe, even though he is a two-time Grand Slam semifinalist. He was 4-4 this clay swing coming into Paris. Last weekend he called his form 'crusty.' He basically hates it, arguing that it doesn't reward good shots.
He does back up a little, to spin the ball a bit more, but it feels weird because when Tiafoe is playing his best, he's standing on or near the baseline. On clay, that can be a problem when opponents are looping shots deep into the court.
He has three wins that looked unlikely at the start of the week. Beating Korda may be the unlikeliest of all.
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Korda, 24, looks to be the best-placed American for a deep run in Paris. He's the son of Petr Korda, the Czech former world No. 2. In Czechia, clay-court tennis is simply called tennis. Sebastian grew up in Florida, but his parents raised him on green clay there, believing it would be easier on his body. He's always been comfortable sliding around, he said.
'For some of the Americans it's obviously a learning curve,' Korda, who made the fourth round in 2020, said in an interview this week. 'Once you just get comfortable on it, you can play some better tennis on it.'
After all these years, Tiafoe looked like he was getting there during his win over Korda, but he wasn't too concerned about doing what the surface says he should.
'It's super critical not to worry about what was and just worry about what ism' Tiafoe said after the Korda win. 'Currently we're at the French Open. Just try to be elite.'
Wins at any Grand Slam count for a lot, but Shelton said at Roland Garros there is something else on the line for this group, who often get classified as athletes with big power but lower tennis IQ. Perhaps this can be the start of something new.
'It would mean a lot… how much respect you would gain for doing well here,' he said.
He even sent a bit of warning about his buddy Tiafoe, as the tournament heads into the second week and every match is on a show court.
'You know Foe,' he said. 'When he's on a big court, he lights it up.'