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Today’s edition of the Daily Drill features the (brief) renaissance of the post-Wimbledon clay-court season, with some high-level level talent descending on a number of smaller tournaments that usually see Casper Ruud and … a cast of dirtballers.

Not this year, not with the Olympics taking place on the clay of Roland Garros.

As well, some vintage vibe on the Canadian side of things with Milos Raonic and Bianca Andreescu both into the singles quarterfinals at the joint ATP/WTA event in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Probably at the same time. Natch.

The Return of Raonic

With the knee taped and a medical timeout for his back during his first-round match, it was a bit (okay, a lot) surprising that Milos Raonic turned up against Roberto Bautista Agut in the second round on Thursday and looked as good as he did.

After dropping the first set, he won 16-of-17 points to take the second set. And then, at 5-6 in the third when it looked destined for a deciding tiebreak, he broke for a 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 win that puts him in the ‘s-Hertogenbosch quarterfinals against No. 1 seed Alex de Minaur.

“I thought I had a pretty good level throughout the match, and I’m happy the way I fought through, and I’m happy to be back on grass competing,” Raonic said during his post-match interview on court. “It’s hard when you go away from tennis so much; you can train and do all the things right and prepare as best as you can. But there’s a whole other level of stress and nerves that comes in when a match starts. I’m happy I dealt with that well.”

Raonic is now 6-0 vs. RBA. He’s 0-2 vs. de Minaur – both in Australia, but the first came in 2018 and the most recent this year at the Australian Open, when Raonic won the first set but retired early in the third.

The rematch – five years on

As for Andreescu, she finally gets a rematch against fellow US Open champion Naomi Osaka – nearly five years after they met for the first and only time in Beijing, in the fall of 2019.

These two very different people have gone through some similar things in the years since they reached those pinnacles, both by beating Serena Williams on the biggest court in tennis, one year apart.

Injuries, mental health challenges, comebacks – and the relentless pressure of producing when all eyes and all the pressure are on you.

Here’s a piece from the WTA website that contains quotes from both players on Friday’s clash.

It’s scheduled for about 9 a.m. EDT – not before 3 p.m. local, with two men’s matches starting at 11 a.m. local. Probably – because they have it in for Canadians – around the same time as Raonic is on Court 1 vs. De Minaur.

STOP THE PRESSES! Record $$ at Wimbledon

Wimbledon will offer record prize money in 2024. Which (pandemic years excepted) every Grand Slam tournament pretty much does every single year.

But it’s still true, even if the percentages that go to the players (some reported 14 per cent) aren’t nearly what they should be.

The increase is 11.9 per cent, with a total of £50 million on offer ($87.8 million CAD; $63.8 million USD). The AELTC boasts that the prize money has doubled since 2014.

Singles winners will get £2.7 million ($4.74 million CAD; $3.45 million USD). Finalists will earn £1.4 million ($2.46 million CAD; $1.79 million USD).

First-round losers will earn £60,000 ($105K CAD; $76.6 K USD).

There will be £1 million ($1.76 million CAD; $1.28 million USD) in prize money for the wheelchair events, where the singles and doubles draws will be expanded to 16 players and eight teams.

The initial list of wild cards will be released in less than a week on Wednesday, June 19.

So far, so slow for Shapo

After playing pretty well at Roland Garros, Canadian Denis Shapovalov wasted no time getting into the grass.

And he wasn’t being ambitious with it, given he’s ranked outside the top 100. He started at the Challenger in Surbiton during the second week of Paris – but lost in the first round to No. 89 Aleksandar Vukic 6-3, 7-6.

Fast forward a week and he took a wild card into the ATP 250 in Stuttgart where he had a nice opening draw against French qualifier Matteo Martineau. He got through that one in two close sets.

But against the Italian Matteo, the road ended.

Sapovalov went out 6-4, 6-4 to former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini, who is the public face of the tournament sponsor and has won the event. But Berrettini hasn’t played since he was bounced in the first round of Monte Carlo two months ago by Miomir Kecmanovic. It was close – one break point converted in each set by the Italian, basically. But no quarterfinal cigar.

The latest is that Shapovalov, who had planned to play the Ilkley Challenger next week, has withdrawn.

He can use his protected ranking to play Wimbledon, but isn’t entered (so far) in either event the week before – Mallorca or Eastbourne.

The biggest thing to happen to Bastad since …

…last year’s Birgit Nilsson Days (no, not Sylvester Stallone’s ex-wife).

We kid. But if there’s an unexpected bonus for clay-court fans with the hosting of this year’s Olympic event on the Roland Garros clay, it’s that the oft-ignored little clay-court season after Wimbledon will pack a punch this year.

Today, it was announced that Rafael Nadal, who is not playing the grass-court season, will be in Bastad, Sweden in July.

Nadal hasn’t played any small clay events in 20 years. But back in the day, he did play Bastad – three straight years, from 2003 (when he was 17) through 2005.

In 2003 he lost in the quarters, in a third-set tiebreak, to Nicolas Lapentti. In 2004, he lost in the quarters to Gaston Gaudio.

In 2005, he won it. And now – 19 years later – he’s back.

Nadal’s insane 2005 season

It’s literally crazy when you look at that 2005 season, when Nadal was 18 turning 19. And then you wonder how much that might have contributed to the wear and tear even though obviously he’s still playing – even banged up – at 38.

He was ranked No. 51 to start that year and after the Australian Open, went to South America and played Buenos Aires, Costa do Sauipe and Acapulco on clay – winning the latter two.

Then he made the Miami final, losing to Roger Federer in five sets (they did this then; they should bring it back tbh) in their first-ever meeting.

Then he went right back on the clay in Valencia, Monte Carlo (won it), Barcelona (won it), Rome (won it in a fifth-set tiebreak over Guillermo Coria).

After that, he took his first Roland Garros title.

After a brief foray on the grass, he went straight back to the clay. He won Bastad with the loss of just one set in the final. Then he won Stuttgart (then on clay) with the lost of just one set to Gaston Gaudio in the final.

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Then a few weeks later he came to Montreal and won THAT, over Andre Agassi in the final after beating Carlos Moya in the first round.

Nadal went 79-10 that season, and won 11 titles. He ended the year No. 2.

And with ALL that, his prize money was only $3.8 million.

Big-league lineups this year

That clay-court swing once seemed to be mostly the domain of Casper Ruud.

But not this year.

There’s an ATP 500 in Hamburg the week after Wimbledon (July 15-21), along with an ATP 250 in Gstaad and the Bastad tournament. The following week, there are 250s in Umag and Kitzbuhel. And then, back to Roland Garros in a quest for gold.

Bastad had already confirmed Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev. Also Cameron Norrie,

Hamburg, so far, has Alexander Zverev and Holger Rune.

Umag has Alexander Rublev, Lorenzo Musetti, Matteo Arnaldi.

Gstaad, so far, has Stefanos Tsitsipas, Hubert Hurkacz, Alex de Minaur, Tommy Paul, Stan Wawrinka, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Etcheverry, Lehecka.

The Queen’s vs Halle battle

Somehow it feels like they might all be better off if the Queen’s Club and Halle ATP 500 grass-court tournaments were all combined into one big event.

(Although someone would have to give up the cash. So that’ll never happen).

But here’s how the top players are split between the competing events. And it looks like Halle is the clear winner with five top-10s. There are three top-10s (including No. 9 and No. 10) expected in Queen’s.

But depth-wise, Queen’s Club has a lot of the players ranked between 10 and 20 – including all of the top Americans.

Halle:

[1] Jannik Sinner
[4] Alexander Zverev
[5] Daniil Medvedev
[6] Andrey Rublev
[8] Hubert Hurkacz
[11] Stefanos Tsitsipas
[17] Alexander Bublik
[18] Félix Auger-Aliassime

Queen’s Club

[2] Carlos Alcaraz
[9] Alex de Minaur
[10] Grigor Dimitrov
[12] Taylor Fritz
[13] Tommy Paul
[14] Ben Shelton
[15] Holger Rune
[16] Ugo Humbert
[19] Sebastian Baez