Long live the clay!

With only the first four days of

concluded

, we could assure you that the tennis players have skipped the warm-up of engines to delight us with very high-level matches from the first day.

The fears that haunted us about the weather conditions at this time in Paris and the new balls, have given way to a much more promising suspicion: a coming week and a half of guaranteed enjoyment for tennis lovers.

As is well known, in matches on clay the tactical question and the tennis player's imagination have a much more decisive influence on the outcome of the match than in other tournaments played on other surfaces, where the speed and strength of the ball decide the outcome of the points to a much greater extent.

In both the women's and men's teams we have seen matches in which opponents of less power and forcefulness in their blows were capable of putting great players in real trouble.

The meeting between Tamara Zidansek and Garbiñe Muguruza was a clear example of this.

The Slovenian player was able to push the Spanish to the limit with a varied and imaginative game.

And in the men's draw, the meeting between Jaume Munar and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the player who occupies the sixth place in the

world

, was another good proof of this.

• The most complicated for Rafael

• All texts by TONI NADAL

The confrontation consisted of more than three hours of points built based on tenacity, climbs to the net, balloons, volleys and, something that lately was being seen too little: left that made clear the good hand of the tennis player and his need to invent the more diverse strategies to deceive the adversary.

A tennis, not so much of strokes and speed as of searching for alternatives, resources and tireless work.

For quite some time now, tennis has been subjected to the American concept of giving maximum value to speed and power;

and thus we have been moving away from what had been the plasticity of the blows, the construction of the points and, therefore, the essence of this sport.

Ground specialists have even heard on more than one occasion that they are simple passers of balls and that true tennis is that which is practiced on fast surfaces.

A few weeks ago, the Australian player Nick Kyrgios had the idea of ​​writing a tweet, upon learning of Pablo Carreño's access to the semifinals of the US Open, in which he assured that the Spanish player would not be among the fifty best in the world if he were not down the dirt tracks.

With the simplicity that characterizes him, he took for granted that Pablo is not a great player and that the game on the dirt court has as little merit as little value.

I think I am not wrong in assuring that not only I, but a vast majority of spectators and connoisseurs, greatly value the concept of the game that we are seeing these days in Paris, the most worthy setting to crown the next

.