Roger Federer may be competing at Roland Garros for the first time since 2015, and he returned to the surface earlier this month for the first time since 2016 Rome. But don’t discount the Swiss on the Parisian clay, as the 101-time tour-level titlist is no stranger to success on the red dirt.

According to the FedEx ATP Performance Zone, Federer has been one of this era’s clay-court leaders in all key categories, despite it being his least successful surface.

Federer has won 76 per cent of his matches on clay, third-best among active players. The only men who have done better are Rafael Nadal (91.7%) and Novak Djokovic (79.5%). Federer’s results put him in 15th place in the Open Era, and only 1.3 percentage points separate him from the Top 10.

Best Clay-Court Winning Percentage (Active Players)

The 37-year-old has won 218 tour-level matches on clay, fourth-best among active players. He did not play on the surface for two full seasons, in 2017-18. Nadal (429), Tommy Robredo (261, 66.6%) and Fernando Verdasco (227, 61.9%) are the only players still competing who own more victories than the Swiss star.

And then there is the matter of titles. Federer, the 2009 Roland Garros champion, is one of just four active players who has lifted the Coupe des Mousquetaires. Nadal has done so 11 times, while Federer, Djokovic and former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka have accomplished the feat once each. Federer has won 11 tour-level titles on clay overall, tied for third among active players with Robredo, trailing Nadal (58) and Djokovic (14).

Federer might not have played on clay for a substantial period of time, but he has already shown his clay-court prowess in the two tournaments he has played on the surface this year. The Swiss held two match points against clay stalwart Dominic Thiem in the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals before ultimately falling short, and he made the last eight at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia before withdrawing due to injury.

“I felt I actually came back fairly quickly. Especially now with having played Madrid, I think the decision-making also came back quite naturally,” Federer said before the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. “I think it always goes back to the fact that I did grow up on this surface. Sliding is something I actually enjoy doing. The problem is, the more time I spend on clay, maybe sometimes the more excited I get playing on the surface, I start sliding around too much instead of actually moving sometimes like on the hard courts and only sliding when really required.

“I must say also in practice in Switzerland I felt good right away. Very happy where I’m at, to be quite honest. I was a bit surprised that it went as easy as it did.”

Did You Know?
Federer reached at least the quarter-finals at Roland Garros in nine consecutive appearances from 2005-13. The Swiss advanced to the final four straight times (2006-09) and made a fifth championship match in Paris in 2011.

Three years ago, the questions were deafening: Would this be the year that Novak Djokovic, then a three-time finalist, wins Roland Garros and completes the career Grand Slam? Only seven men had won all four major championships at the time, and Djokovic was also trying to become only the third man to hold all four majors at once.

He accomplished both, of course, beating Andy Murray in the final to ensure Roland Garros forever remains one of his most cherished tournaments.

“I love playing in Roland Garros, always throughout my career, and especially in the last four or five years. I received a lot of support from the French crowd and also the international crowd that comes here. And I think because of that support, I also managed to win this title in 2016,” Djokovic said.

Just three years later, the World No. 1 is chasing more history in Paris. The Serbian will try to become only the second man to hold all four Grand Slams at the same time twice in his career, joining Rod Laver. Djokovic would be the first to hold all four twice during the Open Era.

Players Winning Four Or More Consecutive Grand Slam Titles (All-Time)

“For me, there is an extra motivation and incentive to win Roland Garros because of the opportunity to hold all four Slams, something I did three years ago in my career, and that gives me obviously enough reason to believe I can do it again,” he said.

A year ago, Djokovic was still in the midst of his comeback from elbow surgery, which sidelined him for the final four months of the 2017 season. At Roland Garros, Djokovic was No. 22, the farthest he’d fall before again returning to No. 1, where he’d finish his 2018 season. But he didn’t return to glory in Paris, falling to Italy’s Marco Cecchinato in the quarter-finals.

“Twelve months ago, the situation was quite different. Obviously recovering from an elbow surgery, dropping out of the Top 20, and everything that I had to face on the court only 12 months ago,” Djokovic said. “Twelve months later, I hold three Slams and being No. 1 of the world, obviously it’s quite a different feeling approaching the tournament, with more confidence, and hopefully I can have a good two weeks.”

The Serbian, despite being No. 1 and having won the title, anointed 11-time champion Rafael Nadal as the “main favourite”. Nadal beat Djokovic on Sunday in the final of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome.

“I think it wouldn’t be fair to pick anybody else but him as the main favourite, because he has won this tournament so many times. He has lost, what, two times in his career on Parisian clay?” Djokovic said, referring to Nadal’s 86-2 record at Roland Garros.

“So lots of respect for him, obviously, as always. We had a good match in Rome. He was a better player. Was just too strong. I felt like I had a fantastic couple weeks in Madrid and Rome, and I probably ran out of gas a little bit in the finals with a couple of long matches and late-night finishes in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.”

Djokovic won the Mutua Madrid Open title the prior week, beating Greece’s #NextGenATP star Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Masters 1000 final.

“Overall, very positive weeks, and it’s a great lead-up to what’s coming up here,” Djokovic said.

Players spend their lives dreaming of that big win, the victory that makes the world stop, recognise their names – maybe learn how to pronounce them – and hear their stories.

Japan’s Taro Daniel beat current World No. 1 Novak Djokovic last year at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells for the biggest win of his nine-year career. And for a while, the upset felt exactly like he thought it would – life-changing, validating, satisfying.

“At that moment I won, it did feel like something big, and that’s how I thought it was going to feel like,” Daniel told ATPTour.com. “But then 40 minutes later, everything’s the same.”

He had another match to prepare for, then another tournament to travel to, and then another match to prepare for…

“In the end, it’s just a match, and then the Tour goes on, life goes on. You still have to grind some [ATP Challenger Tour] matches, you still have weeks where you can’t win matches,” Daniel said. “It did help me in terms of getting more recognition perhaps, but yeah, life still goes on.”

The “What have you done for me lately?” world can be cruel: Beat the best player in the world, and you have to back it up again, and again and again. But for Daniel, the daily tennis grind did improve after his headline win against Djokovic.

Two months later, a more confident Daniel won his maiden ATP Tour title at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open. The Japanese reached a new career-high of No. 64 in the ATP Rankings in August. “Last year was a pretty big step up,” he said.

This year, Daniel has his eyes solely on the future as he looks to construct a more complete game for himself and secure more wins over Djokovic and his peers at the top of the ATP Rankings. The 26-year-old Japanese, who was born in New York but moved to Japan as a baby, spent ages 13-23 training in Valencia, Spain, where the focus was on his groundstrokes and rallies.

“Very endurance based, a lot of crosscourt rallies… trying to not go for aces, trying to build up the point with a kick serve and get your forehand,” Daniel said.

Read Flashback: Daniel Stuns Djokovic In Indian Wells

The strategies provided a consistent tennis base for him, but lately he’s been trying to build a more complete game, including taking advantage of his 6’3”, 190-pound frame.

“I’m not going to be better than, for example, a Nishioka or a Schwartzman from the baseline, because no matter how hard I work they’re always going to move better than me,” Daniel said.

“I have to have that offensive side of my game… My serve, I have to improve my volleys, which I basically never trained until a couple years ago. Those things are adding up nicely, but it still has to really naturally come. I think it will still take a little bit more time.”

Adding new tactics and trying to change years’ worth of patterns can produce up-and-down results. Daniel made the quarter-finals at this week’s Banque Eric Sturdza Geneva Open and at the Grand Prix Hassan II in April in Marrakech. But before April, he hadn’t made a quarter-final in eight months, since last August at the Winston-Salem Open.

“We’re focusing now on getting more aggressive overall without losing his DNA of consistency,” said Gustavo Marcaccio, Daniel’s coach since July 2018. “He has already improved his serve significantly, but he could improve it even more… Little by little, he will become a big server in the game.

“As far as returns, it’s the same thing… He could easily attack the second serve a little more.”

Daniel heads to Roland Garros in a good – but precarious – spot. He didn’t have to play qualifying before the season’s second Grand Slam – good news. But his ATP Ranking has slipped to No. 107, at least eight spots away from where he’d like to be to help him secure main-draw entry into future Grand Slams.

But Daniel, a 10-year veteran on the ATP Tour, knows better than most that the tennis life can be like this: highs, lows and everything in between.

“It goes away really quick – all the good weeks. Before you know it you have to defend the points… It’s a constant struggle… You try to keep the load the light as possible, try to concentrate on improvement instead of the material side of it,” Daniel said. “It’s a long process.”

The Roland Garros main draw is complete after the final eight qualifiers booked their spots on Friday, led by two #NextGenATP competitors who will be making their Grand Slam debuts in Paris. 

Two 20-year-olds, Swede Mikael Ymer and Frenchman Elliot Benchetrit, battled through three-setters on the final day of qualifying to reach the main draw of the year’s second major. Ymer, the 32nd qualifying seed, beat fourth-seeded Swiss Henri Laaksonen 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in one hour and 46 minutes to move through, and he will face another qualifier, Slovenian Blaz Rola, in the first round. Rola ousted Colombian Daniel Elahi Galan 6-3, 6-2 in 76 minutes.

“I feel very emotional right now,” Ymer told RolandGarros.com. “It’s what we all work for since we were kids, a big milestone in my career.”

Although Ymer is 0-2 at tour-level this year, he has enjoyed success on the ATP Challenger Tour, claiming his first title at that level in Noumea, New Caledonia in January and reaching two additional finals.The World No. 149 won an ATP Masters 1000 match last year in Miami against Jan-Lennard Struff.

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Benchetrit, currently No. 273 in the ATP Rankings, overcame countryman Enzo Couacaud 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 after one hour and 55 minutes. Benchetrit will face Brit Cameron Norrie in his first tour-level match.

Top seed Tennys Sandgren will compete in the Roland Garros main draw for the third straight year after beating home favourite Mathias Bourgue 7-6(1), 7-5 in one hour and 46 minutes. It will be the 2018 Australian Open quarter-finalist’s seventh consecutive major main draw, and he will open against Moldovan Radu Albot. 

Italian Simone Bolelli, who reached the third round at Roland Garros in 2008 and 2015, will play the main draw in Paris for the 13th straight year after dismissing Japan’s Go Soeda 6-1, 7-6(5). Bolelli will try to upset home favourite and Australian Open semi-finalist Lucas Pouille.

The other three players who moved through are Frenchman Alexandre Muller, who beat Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4, Spaniard Pedro Martinex, who ousted Geoffrey Blancaneaux 6-3, 6-1, and Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, who eased past Lucas Miedler 6-2, 6-4.

Did World No. 1 Novak Djokovic turn into The Hulk at Roland Garros?

On Friday, the top seed posted a video of himself on social media placing cones around a depression in the gym floor so other players and their teams would avoid the area. That’s because, not realising the surface underneath the cushioning is wood, Djokovic threw a medicine ball down as part of his warmup routine before practice, breaking the wood.

“Today warming up in the gym before my practice I used a medicine ball by slamming it on the floor pretty hard. As a result, I wrecked a wooden floor. @RolandGarros please forgive me!” Djokovic wrote, before replying with a second tweet. “Just FYI I left Paris for several days until the investigation is completed… my participation at RG is maybe under review? ???” 

Just fyi I left Paris for several days until the investigation is completed.. my participation at RG is maybe under review? ???

— Novak Djokovic (@DjokerNole) May 24, 2019

Djokovic, who noted on Instagram that he will ‘pay his dues’, was joking about leaving Paris. Instead, he will try to win his fourth consecutive Grand Slam title. The Serbian begins his tournament against 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier Hubert Hurkacz.

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Felix Auger-Aliassime booked his place in a second ATP Tour final of 2019 on Friday evening after coming through a hard-fought 2-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 victory against top-seeded Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili in two hours and 16 minutes at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon.

The 19-year-old Auger-Aliassime, who also beat Basilashvili at the Miami Open presented by Itau in March, will now play Benoit Paire of France in Saturday’s final at the ATP 250 tournament. It will be a first-time FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting. Auger-Aliassime lost to Laslo Djere on 24 February in the Rio Open presented by Claro final .

Basilashvili took control immediately, storming through the first set with two service breaks in 27 minutes, but the World No. 18 was unable to convert three break points on Auger-Aliassime’s serve at 4-4 in the second set. The Canadian later broke clear from 3/3 in the tie-break.

Auger-Aliassime saved two break points at 2-3 in the decider and grew in confidence when Basilashvili struck consecutive backhand errors in the seventh game. Auger-Aliassime finished his 20th match win of the year with his 12th ace. Basilashvili, who is left to rue converting only two of nine break point chances, is now 14-12 on the season.

Earlier in the day, Paire blasted his way into his seventh ATP Tour final. The 30-year-old struck 10 aces and won 33 of 34 first-service points to overcome American Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-2 in 65 minutes.

Paire, who is 2-4 in ATP Tour finals, lifted trophies at the 2015 Swedish Open (d. Robredo) and the Grand Prix Hassan II at Marrakech (d. Andujar) in March this year.

Dodig/Roger-Vasselin Advance To Lyon Doubles Final
Ivan Dodig and Edouard Roger-Vasselin will attempt to capture their second team trophy of the season after the second seeds swept past fourth seeds Luke Bambridge and Jonny O’Mara 6-1, 6-2 in 52 minutes.

This year’s Open Sud de France titlists will next challenge another all-British team, third-seeded brothers Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski, in Saturday’s final. The Skupskis are 3-5 in team finals, including victory last month at the Hungarian Open.