Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
PARIS — The French Open men’s singles final between Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem on Sunday was everything fans expect clay-court tennis to be: full of long rallies capped by tremendous winners.
That’s what clay court tennis is all about, right? Patience, perseverance, consistency, shot tolerance, grinding and suffering?
Short rallies ending in errors are relegated to our short-term memory, quickly dismissed as being irrelevant and extraneous to the final outcome.
But short rallies are the norm, not the aberration, at the French Open, according to analytics provided by Roland Garros’ new technology partner, Infosys.