The king is dead, long live the king. As tennis moves to clay courts for the next few months, one of the sport’s greatest on the surface will be abscent for the first time in two decades. A clay-court swing without Rafael Nadal seemed implausible for so long, but now it has arrived.
In his absence, a cast of men’s tennis characters will be looking to take up the mantle, while on the women’s side, another clutch of players will be looking to topple the contemporary queen of clay, Iga Świątek.
Elsewhere, there’s a return from a doping ban, a new umpiring system and much more to contend with. Here’s what to look out for during the European clay-court swing.
El Rey in absentia
The main character of the men’s clay-court season will be someone other than Nadal for the first time in around two decades. He may not have won the French Open every year from 2005 onwards, but even when he didn’t, the state of his game and body was always the main talking point. Before Nadal lost to Alexander Zverev in the first round of his final French Open last year, all anyone was talking about in April and May was how his body would hold up on the surface he had owned for the previous 19 years.
With Nadal retired, someone else has the opportunity to make the next couple of months their…
