But that was in 2010, before Tsonga had made it quite so clear that his big game could work well on the game's grittiest surface.
He won the French Open on red clay in 1991 and 1992, and the team he has brought to Monte Carlo, led by John Isner and the Bryan twins, has also shown an aptitude for thriving on the game's grittiest surface.
At the start of Nadal's career, his game and proclivities gave him a natural advantage only on clay, but he has been talented enough, open-minded enough and driven enough to modify his tactics, even his technique, and close the gap on the game's other surfaces.
As rivals, they took the men's game out of its big serve/weak (if any) return/put-away doldrums and displayed how athleticism and a will to continuously improve can establish champions able to play all-court games on all the game's surfaces: hard court, grass and clay.
Stevenson happily concedes that she relishes playing on the game's slickest, quickest surface, but her on-court difficulties have not simply been a question of changing topography.
At 18, Nadal had already won three minor Tour titles on the game's slowest, most demanding surface, and he had already helped Spain win the Davis Cup on clay.
Both players are creative improvisers who can scramble, bend their bodies into elastic positions, and scrape back retrievals from the full stretch all assets on the game's fastest Grand Slam surface.
The Federer-style squash shot has become integral to the game on all surfaces, however.
"What localization actually means, and what we should focus on, is not changing the game on the surface, but figuring out how to make it easier to approach".
After that Jim said he wanted me and I signed a contract for two years and then another two years". Adapting to a new country and a new form of the game on a new surface took some time.
"The Rules of the Game" is on its surface nothing more than a story about some rich folks and their servants who have gathered for a long house party at an estate in the French countryside.
