Why not admit it? I’ve never known exactly what to do with clay court tennis. For one thing, the launch into the clay court season, coming as it does after the hardcourt shootouts and primetime battles of Indian Wells and Miami, throws us into a different continent with a timezone that challenges easy appointment viewing. For another thing, many of the players who do well on clay aren’t very well known.   Well, Nadal, yeah, of course. But name seventeen others. And what’s with the long rallies and lack of closing shots, anyway? It all has lead to less than full enthusiasm from me and other asphalt blasters. And then I went to Roland Garros. Now I get it.

Clay is elemental, unpredictable and exciting. Like an Ernests Gulbis interview. Here are supremely fit and technique-laden athletes, fully capable of doing just about anything they want with the felt sphere, made…