Clay SZN: WTA has served up star power, while surprises and injuries have shaken up the ATP

In the third game of his quarterfinal in Rome on Wednesday, Alexander Zverev staggered and stumbled his way across the Campo Centrale clay before finally crashing to the dirt with a 6-foot-6-sized thud. He stayed down and winced, and the capacity crowd winced with him. Were we about to see another injury, and another early retirement, on the men’s side during this clay season?

Until this point, Zverev was the only member of the ATP’s Top 5 to avoid either an injury or a mysterious early exit from a Roland Garros tune-up tournament. As Tennis Channel’s Brett Haber half-joked on Twitter this week, the German, despite having had a mediocre-at-best clay swing so far, might head to Paris as the favorite to the win the tournament, because none of the players above him—Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev—have any momentum going into the year’s second Grand Slam. Sinner and Alcaraz skipped Rome to recover from injuries, while Djokovic and Medvedev put in lackluster performances in defeat.

To the loud applause of the Roman fans, though, Zverev did get up, and went on to beat Taylor Fritz and reach the semis in Rome for the fourth time. But his presence there doesn’t the change the fact that this has been a head-scratching last four weeks of professional tennis.

For 20 years, the ATP has been the more orderly and predictable of the two tours. Five players—Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Stan Wawrinka—have won just about everything. During that same time, a much wider cast of women have come and gone from major-tournament winner’s circles. But at the last two clay-court Masters 1000s, that dynamic has abruptly been reversed.

In Madrid, the women’s semis included Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, and Elena Rybakina—the WTA’s version of the Big 3. On the men’s side, it was Andrey Rublev, Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger Aliassime, and Jiri Lehecka, only one of whom was in the Top 10.

That pattern has continued in Rome. Thursday’s women’s semifinals will feature No. 1 Swiatek vs. No. 3 Coco Gauff, and No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka vs. No. 13 Danielle Collins. Even Collins isn’t a surprise; she’s had a career year so far in 2024. Meanwhile, the last six men in the draw as of today are Zverev, Alejandro Tabilo, Hubert Hurkacz, Tommy Paul, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Nicolas Jarry.

We’re used to watching Nadal and Federer, or Nadal and Djokovic, ratchet up the tension in April and May, as they built their way to a climatic finale in Paris. This year it may be Swiatek and Sabalenka who do those honors, and shoulder that burden.

Is there any rhyme or reason for this switch? Madrid and Rome have both been expanded this year, from one week to nearly two. But the player are competing in the same number of matches, and the extra day of rest in between should, if anything, lead to fewer injuries. If the schedule really did make a difference, the injuries and upsets should show up relatively equally on both tours.

I’d guess that it’s the result of a bit of an unfortunate storm among the men. Djokovic is 36, and his mindset and coaching team have been in flux for most of this season. Alcaraz is injury-prone. Sinner has played and won a lot this year, and has also had his share of injuries in the past. And maybe the generally healthy Medvedev was due for an issue. By the time Roland Garros begins, I expect them to all be in the field and feeling better. As much as Madrid and Rome mean to them, they’ll sacrifice those events to be healthy in Paris.

For now, the women is where the star-power lies. On Thursday, Swiatek will take on Gauff in the day match, and Sabalenka will play Collins in the night session.

Swiatek is 9-1 against Gauff, and 3-0 on clay. While Gauff beat her for the first time in Cincinnati last year, Swiatek came back and won their two most recent meetings in straight sets. Gauff is on an upswing this week; her serve, forehand, and attitude have been better in Rome than they have been for much of this year. But Swiatek is also in top form; so far in Madrid and Rome, she has won 20 of 22 sets. This may be a Swiatek win, and a chance for Gauff to gauge her clay game against the gold standard.

The head-to-head between Sabalenka and Collins is even more one-sided: Sabalenka leads 5-0. But three of those wins have come in three sets, including a tough one last month in Madrid. Collins, in her final season, has been determined to leave it all out on the court. That should make this semifinal a fierce one, and a loud one.

Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer usually came through in these types of matches, and set up the finals that fans were waiting for. Swiatek and Sabalenka pulled it off in Madrid; let’s see if they can do it for the first time in Rome, too. If so, they may be the talk of the town in Paris in a few weeks time.