Most tennis singles matches on clay won consecutively (male)

Between 12 April 2005 and 19 May 2007, Rafael Nadal (Spain) won 81 consecutive matches on clay. Nadal’s winning streak included tournament victories in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome (all won three years in a row, 2005-07) and his first and second titles at the French Open (2005-06). In the 2007 Hamburg Masters final, Nadal finally met his match in the shape of Roger Federer, who won the deciding set 6-0 to bring to an end an extraordinary run that had begun 768 days earlier.

The first match of the streak was against Gael Monfils in Round 1 of the 2015 Monte-Carlo Masters. Match number 81 was a semi-final win against Lleyton Hewitt at the 2007 Hamburg Masters on 19 May - 24 hours before losing to Federer.

Nadal won 13 titles and contested 209 sets of tennis (including 14 sets in two Davis Cup ties against Italy in 2005-06) during his 81-match unbeaten run on clay.

Nadal also holds the clay-court (and all-surface) record for the most consecutive sets won – 50, between 29 May 2017 and 10 May 2018 – and the most clay-court titles in the open era – 57 (correct to 10 June 2018). He has won an unprecedented 11 French Open titles on the most famous clay courts of them all at Roland Garros.