Coco Gauff is the reigning French Open champion, and should return to the event later this month confident of defending that title.
After all, despite having suffered with serving and forehand issues, it does feel like tangible progress is becoming visible with each passing week.
Naturally, the threat of players like Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina looms, but on the dirt, the American is gifted plenty of chances to show off her unmatched speed and work rate.
And yet, despite these conditions seemingly favouring her play style, Coco Gauff has now explained why she doesn’t really like playing on clay.
Coco Gauff explains what her relationship with clay is really like
Speaking to BBC Sport as she gears up for her opening-round match in Madrid, the 20-year-old offered a metaphor to outline what her relationship with this surface is really like.
“You know, if you have a guy, and they just treat you good, and they do everything right, but it’s still, like, just not there,” she began, laughing. “That’s how I feel about clay.”
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Gauff continued: “Like, I have great results on Clay. I do well on clay, but my socks get dirty, like, I have to take off my shoes before I get in my room.
“It’s just a lot of things that I also don’t like about it, but my career has, on clay, always been the first of everything. Junior title there, my first Grand final, my first doubles Grand Slam.
“So it’s just one of those things, you know, maybe nice guys finish last [laughs].”
Gauff rated her serve’s performance since moving onto the clay, expressing positivity after so many months of being held back by it.
How Rafael Nadal helped shape Coco Gauff’s play style on clay
Speaking earlier this month at the Stuttgart Open, Gauff was actually asked about clay again, and who she had modelled her game on this surface around.
“The greatest clay court player is Rafa,” she began, smiling.
”I don’t quite play like him but I do try to hit my forehand like he does on clay. I don’t run around as much because my forehand isn’t as good as Rafa. But I do try to hit it like him.”
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Having then been branded as ‘kind of a right-handed version of Rafa’, she laughed whilst replying: ‘Like a Walmart version of Rafa.’
Gauff then added: ”I don’t want to be obliterated online. Like a lesser version of Rafa.”
Whilst she explains how Nadal shaped her play style over the years, Iga Swiatek has actually been practising with Nadal recently in an effort to recapture her dominant form of old on this surface.
