Alberto Berasategui

Alberto Berasategui

Alberto Berasategui built his game around a grip so closed it looked like a mistake: he swung at forehands and backhands off the same face of the racquet, a western hold so extreme that rivals called it the Hawaiian grip. It was made for looping topspin into a Roland Garros clay court, and in 1994 it carried the 21 year old Basque to the final, where defending champion Sergi Bruguera beat him in four, 6-3, 7-5, 2-6, 6-1, the tournament's first all-Spanish men's final.

That runner-up finish was as close as he came to a major, but it lifted him to a career-high No. 7 that November. From 1993 to 1998 he won a clay title every year, stacking up 14 career titles, all on the surface that forgave his technique and forgave little else. Wrist injuries picked up in 1998 wore him down, and he retired in 2001, a specialist who reached the top of the game on a shot nobody else dared copy.