He is a six-time Grand Slam champion but never won an ATP title on clay

Jannik Sinner is not the only Grand Slam champion with a small clay-court title count

Sinner is not the only Grand Slam champion who has won just one clay-court title.

The Italian has won four Grand Slams, but so far, his only trophy on clay came at the Croatia Open in 2022. That win was over Carlos Alcaraz, who later beat him twice on clay last year, including at Roland Garros.

Even though Sinner only has one title on the surface, there’s a six-time major winner who never managed to lift a single trophy on clay.

Despite all his success, Boris Becker never claimed a single clay court title

Boris Becker collected six Grand Slam trophies and spent 12 weeks as world number one during his career. The German captured 49 career titles in total, winning more than 63% of the finals he played in.

Of those 49 titles, 16 came on hard courts, seven were won on grass, and the remaining 26 were on carpet—a surface that’s no longer part of the ATP Tour calendar.

Becker did reach six finals on clay but was never able to come away with a title. Even though it wasn’t his strongest surface, Becker still had plenty of quality matches on clay throughout his time on tour.

Five of those finals came at Masters-level events or their equivalents. Three of them were at the Monte Carlo Masters, where he went close to winning more than once.

During his third appearance in the Monte-Carlo final back in 1995, he built a two-set lead over Thomas Muster and even held two championship points in the fourth set before things slipped away from him.

A double fault followed by a forehand error while leading the tie-break handed Muster an opening he didn’t waste. It ended up being another missed chance for Becker to get his first title on that surface.

How far did Boris Becker go at Roland Garros?

As mentioned earlier, Boris Becker finished his career with six Grand Slam singles titles. He won twice at the Australian Open

Becker won twice at the Australian Open, three times at Wimbledon and once at the US Open. The French Open was always elusive for him, though – it was a tournament that didn’t play to his strengths as much as others did throughout his time on tour.

Boris played nine times across nine years (he missed four tournaments between ’86 and ’95) and still managed a winning record despite not making it beyond three semi-final appearances. He ended up winning an impressive seventy-four per cent across twenty-five matches played there over that span.

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