Besides being a little off topic for the site... Another key and massively important point with clay is that you can slide. Sliding properly where you stop as

Besides being a little off topic for the site... Another key and massively important point with clay is that you can slide. Sliding properly where you stop as you hit the ball is a really tough skill to learn. Rafa has absolutely mastered this and it's a beauty to see. Sliding combined with the ball slowing and bouncing higher lets you get balls much further out. It makes it possible to defend more balls and not be out of court as much. On other surfaces like hardcourt, and grass it's really hard to slide. If you sprint out to a ball on those surfaces you will hit it on the run and end up a couple of steps beyond where the ball bounced. On clay with sliding you can really minimize these plays and maintain your position on court. Also, you can run so much harder on clay without fearing having to stop really hard which hurts on hard courts and significantly increases injury risk. Rafa's movement on clay just makes him unbeatable.