{"id":701606,"date":"2026-05-29T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/701606\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:22:08","slug":"french-open-2026-results-should-more-british-woe-in-grand-slam-singles-be-a-concern-for-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/701606\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open 2026 results: Should more British woe in Grand Slam singles be a concern for Wimbledon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The inquest into the lack of British singles success at the French Open is nothing new and is largely down to a lack of exposure to the clay.<\/p>\n

According to the Lawn Tennis Association, there are around 1,300 clay-courts in Great Britain. That is about 5% of the 23,000 total number of courts.<\/p>\n

In contrast, about 60% of courts in Spain – one of the leading nations on the surface – are clay.<\/p>\n

“Do I think we should try and develop more juniors on clay? Yes. I think it helps the understanding and construction of the game more,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

The grass courts are where British players tend do better, given it is the surface they have more access to from a younger age.<\/p>\n

Giving a host of wildcards to home players throughout the British grass swing is also a crucial development tool.<\/p>\n

For players like Oliver Tarvet, who met Alcaraz in the Wimbledon second round last year<\/a> after receiving a qualifying wildcard, it can be a valuable springboard.<\/p>\n

As well as exposure at a higher level, the money earned can be used to finance what is an expensive career.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think you’ll probably see some people you’ve never heard of before making deep runs in a lot of big tournaments,” Fearnley added.<\/p>\n

“All the guys that lose in Paris are straight on the grass the next day. <\/p>\n

“I think the state of British tennis going into grass is probably pretty good.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The inquest into the lack of British singles success at the French Open is nothing new and is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-701606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}