Looking at the Grand Slams that Roger Federer won in his career, it’s easy to draw a conclusion on which surfaces the former number one preferred.
Federer won eight titles at Wimbledon, six at the Australian Open, five at the US Open and then just the singular French Open title.
Put simply, Federer wasn’t an expert on clay, a title that will always belong to Rafael Nadal.
Nadal won the French Open 14 times with Bjorn Berg coming closest in the Open era to the Spaniard with six titles himself.
But despite only winning one Grand Slam on clay, Federer did see fit to call the surface ‘too easy’ back in 2010.
Roger Federer once explained why he thought clay courts were ‘too easy’
Speaking to the Independent, Federer didn’t want to offend his rival Nadal, but the world number one at the time did believe that winning the French Open could be considered less of a full test of a player’s tennis.
Federer said: “On clay you don’t need to have a volley – you almost don’t need to have a serve.
“All you need to have is legs, an incredible forehand and backhand and to run things down.
“I’m not trying to take anything away from Rafa, because he’s an exception and he did everything on other surfaces as well, but I think you can get away with having problems with your game on clay more than you can on other surfaces.
“On a hard court you can lure a guy in and do many more things. You almost have to have more feel.
“On clay, I don’t want to say it’s too simple, that you just have to keep the ball in court and wait for a mistake, but sometimes it’s too easy.”
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Roger Federer’s record at the French Open and on clay as a surface
In terms of his record on clay, Federer won 11 titles playing on the surface throughout his career.
The now 43-year-old won the French Open once as mentioned and also bagged six Masters 1000 titles on clay.
In terms of his record in finals on the surface, Federer reached 26 but won just 11 of them – disappointing numbers by his lofty standards.
And whilst Federer went four wins a piece with Novak Djokovic when he faced the Serb on his least preferred surface, his record against Nadal was slightly different.
Rafael Nadal’s clear superiority over Roger Federer on clay
Nadal said Federer made a mistake against him early on in their rivalry in the past.
But in terms of how they fared against each other on clay – it’s obviously not good reading for the man from Switzerland.
Federer lost four French Open finals against the Spaniard and their overall record on clay stood at 14-2, in favour of Nadal of course.
So whilst Federer thought clay inspired a rather simplistic form of tennis, it was still one that he wasn’t able to master in a similar vein to grass or hard courts.
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