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By Giri Nathan
[vc_empty_space height="15px"]Tennis can be so humbling. Yes, it can make your lungs hurt, but the ego bruise is worse. It’s not just the way it leaves you gasping but also the way it can leave you wistfully remembering a time when you were way better at it. What happened to my timing? What about my kick serve? Didn’t this used to be way easier? I am humbled every time I pick up a racquet to hack away for the first time in a few weeks. And top pros, even, can be humbled every time the tour moves over to a surface they don’t love. I’ve always enjoyed watching proven hard-court champs try to find their footing on clay. There’s drama in watching confidence go from 100 to 0 and creep up again, and the tenor of that drama varies wildly, depending on whether the subject is clay-despising (hello, Daniil Medvedev) or merely clay-befuddled (hello, Naomi Osaka).