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By Giri Nathan
[vc_empty_space height="15px"]A tennis player goes on a tear. It’s pretty much always a delight to watch, but they are not all made equal. Here’s a theory: The most entertaining tear in tennis is when a power hitter sees the tennis ball like a cantaloupe for a week, and hits through the clay as if it were not clay at all. Roland-Garros has given us many iconic examples: Robin Soderling delivering conclusive evidence that Rafa could actually lose, Jelena Ostapenko exploding in an orb of pure light, Stan Wawrinka growing the fangs of the Stanimal. These aren’t the players canonically thought of as good on clay—that honor goes to all those lean masters of topspin and stamina and artful slides. But if conditions and form align, there is no touching them. If their timing is perfect and their legs hold up and they can see the slowness of the surface as a means to offset their subpar foot speed, then these players can load up and do awful damage with every stroke. Which is exactly what Aryna Sabalenka has been up to lately. It’s not just her killer 23–6 record this season; it’s what’s under her soles.