Andy Murray says clay is his favourite surface to play on "but not necessarily my best to win matches on". He gave us a practical demonstration of what he meant today, playing quite beautifully at times before going out of the French Open to Nicolas Almagro.
Almagro may look more like a banker than a tennis player - a little on the tubby side compared to the lean Murray - but he is a clay court specialist to his Spanish marrow. In the final reckoning he was just too steady and savvy for Murray on a surface that he first scuffed as a small boy in Murcia.
"It was a very good match, a very high standard," Murray said. "He served very well and I just played a couple of bad games. Some of my shots were pretty special."
Murray took his time to get going. Within no more than a few minutes he was trailing 3-0 and the signs were that this was to be the briefest of encounters. By the end of the first set, though, he had established a very definite foothold in the match as he held serve with increasing confidence. He had out-aced Almagro by six to four.
The second set was full of good things from Murray. He showed real spirit to hold serve in the ninth game, having been 40-0 down, and played magnificently to win the tiebreaker 7-3. He closed out the set with an angled forehand that was perfectly weighted to fall just out of Almagro's reach.
Disappointingly, Murray failed to compete in the third set and for most of the fourth. He came to life only when all seemed lost at 5-3 down. In the ninth game he saved a match point and was a little lucky to stay in the contest when a bad call went against Almagro. But there was nothing wrong with the way he broke Almagro to pull back to 5-5.
The frustration showed when he netted a volley to drop his serve in the next game, hurling his cap on the court and shouting at himself in frustration. This time Almagro did not falter, holding his serve to 15 to go through to the fourth round.
Murray's best sequence of wins on clay remains stalled at two - all of them in tournaments this year: in Monte Carlo, Hamburg and now Paris - yet there were not many shots or strategies that Murray did not employ at some stage during the match. He had mixed success with the drop shot, which despite criticism he shows no sign of using more sparingly. He executed finely measured lobs, served and volleyed, and duelled from the back of the court with clever variations of pace and angles. For most of the time there was not much wrong with his serve, either.
What was missing, though - and what Murray has acknowledged he does not have enough of for playing on clay - was endless patience. This was Almagro's strongest suit. While Murray could not resist mixing things up, trying a little experimentation here and there, Almagro just kept plugging away, keeping his ground strokes long and true until Murray could stand it no longer.
Murray's next competitive singles assignment will be at the Queen's Club in London in just over a week's time. That is on grass, of course - a surface Murray may not like playing on as much as clay, but on which he is considerably more effective.
Asked about his Wimbledon ambitions, he said: "I want to win the tournament. I'm not saying it will happen but if I play my best tennis I can win. I think I serve and volley better than most of the other players."
Style queen Serena loses the contest that matters
First Serena Williams comfortably won the style contest. But then, having put away her golden handbag and taken up her cudgel (aka her racket), she lost the battle that mattered - the one on court against Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.
It was the first major, major upset of the women's singles and owed more to what Williams did not do - produce anything like her best form, that is - than to what Srebotnik did do. All that was required of the Slovenian was to keep the ball within the white lines and wait for Williams, the winner of eight grand-slam titles, including the 2002 French Open crown, to make a succession of horrible errors. It seemed unlikely that such a talented player could go on performing quite so incompetently - but this she managed to do right up to losing the third-round match 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and a half.
Srebotnik epitomises solid competence. Nothing more. She has been plugging away in grand slams since 1999 and this is only the second time she has made it beyond the third round. The previous time was also at Roland Garros in 2002 when she was beaten in the fourth round.
Tall and slim, Srebotnik moved around the court much more efficiently than Williams. But Williams is used to this. It is a disadvantage she normally overcomes by the ferocity of her hitting. But while the power was there on this occasion, she had the radar switched off and the ball flew in all directions. She hit some appalling overheads, mostly deep into the net, and her volleying was terrible. One absolute sitter did not even make it into the tram lines.
But at least she won the style contest. Srebotnik was already standing at the net, dressed in utilitarian top and skirt, while the perfectly turned-out Williams was still on her seat rummaging around in the golden handbag. She eventually found her matching sweatband and only then was she ready to go.
Straightaway Williams dropped serve after losing the first three points of the match and at 30-all in the third game was two points away from trailing 3-0. But she then delivered two aces - one of 196kph - and the crisis seemed to be over as she moved ahead 3-2. Not a bit of it. As Srebotnik steadied away, on the other side of the net the winner of nearly $20m in prize money threw away the chance of reaching another big pay day.
Having taken advantage of a careless service game by Williams, Srebotnik served for the opening set and eventually clinched it courtesy of her opponent's unrelenting waywardness. She reached her fourth set point when Williams completely mis-hit a backhand volley and was then the beneficiary of an inexplicable decision by Williams to try to hit one-handed a shot that normally she would have put away easily with two.
Things got no better for Williams in the second set when she had points to break Srebotnik in the fourth, sixth and eighth games but failed to take any of them. In the end she looked almost relieved to seek out the sanctuary of a darkened room somewhere.
When she emerged from her darkened room to confront the press, Williams made an unconvincing attempt to attribute defeat not to her own inadequacies but to Srebotnik's adequacies. If ever there was a case of burying your head in the clay, this was it.
"I wasn't nervous," Williams said. "She was getting a lot of balls back, and I might have let that get into my head. I should have just made my shots. She was just making some shots I don't think she's ever made before, or she would probably be in the top two.
"I knew it was going to be a tough match, but what can I say? She just played unbelievably today." No, Serena, it was you who played unbelievably - unbelievably badly.
Srebotnik was far more realistic. "I have always been close, you know, always in the third rounds of grand slams. I have always played tough opponents who in the end were just better than me.
"Today I woke up and it was just another opportunity. This is what you work so hard for: to be in the third round where you play Serena or someone like that and you really have nothing to lose. If you win a match like that, you gain a lot - so I took my chances. I'm really happy that today it turned my way."
