World No. 4 Aryna Sabalenka simply named Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic when asked to name good clay court players.
The ATP organizers a Q&A session with players and one of the players was to name good players on clay,
When it was Sabalenka’s turn, she blanked out before naming the Big Three.
“Nadal, Federer and Djokovic,” Sabalenka said.
Sabalenka’s answer prompted the producer to react: “You might as well go with the Big Three.”
“They’re great on clay court, no?” Sabalenka asked.
Djokovic plays, Nadal and Federer recovering
Only one Big Three member participated at the Monte Carlo Masters this week.
Djokovic, who was seeded at No. 1, kicked off his clay season in Monte Carlo.
Nadal is in Spain recovering from a stress fracture in one of his ribs, while Federer is set to skip the whole clay season as he is recovering from a knee surgery.
Djokovic didn’t take the advantage of Nadal’s absence as he suffered a shock loss to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in his Monte Carlo opener.
Davidovich Fokina, 22, handed Djokovic a 6-3 6-7 (5) 6-1 loss.
“I always believed that I could come back and win the match, and I stayed there even though a lot of things were against me in terms of how I felt on the court. Game-wise, physically I was just far from my best,” Djokovic said after the loss. “So of course in those types of conditions and circumstances, then you have to really work two times more than you normally would. And again, I played a clay-court specialist. He had a match already on centre court a few days ago.
“I expected this match to be [a] really tough match, [a] physical battle, and that’s what it was. Unfortunately I’m on the shorter end of the stick, and my week ends here.”
Djokovic will play in Belgrade next week, while it remains unclear when Nadal will be ready to return.