Rafael Nadal

It was a remarkable admission for a born dirtballer to make, but Rafael Nadal on Friday expressed his desire for a longer grass court season to ease the transition from the red, dusty clay of Paris to the lawns of Wimbledon.

“Grass is for cows,” the Chilean clay court specialist Marcelo Rios once famously opined, but Nadal adopts nothing with the same flippant attitude to his visits to the All England Club, where he has been a finalist for the past two years.

His form on clay remains formidable to the point of frightening — on Friday he simply demolished Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen in the third round 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 — but he demands more than the genteel preamble of the Artois Championships to refine his armoury for Wimbledon.

“The grass court season is very, very short,” he said.

“I always say the same: It’s not fair… you have only two weeks to prepare for a very important tournament like Wimbledon.”

Asked whether, with only a month of clay practice behind him since he began at the Monte Carlo Masters last month, he would prefer a season without a grass court match, he replied: “I never thought of the calendar without Wimbledon, so I prefer a longer grass court season.”

The world No.2 has been unusually vocal in his comments about the ATP’s scheduling habits of late, criticising the decision to hold three clay court Masters Series events in four weeks when a host of players withdrew from the Rome tournament due to excessive strain.

But he has experienced few problems at the French Open — even having been forced onto the courts for four consecutive days through the Paris rain.

“I am a little bit tired. I’ve played six sets in two days and two days before, the first match, I was in the locker room all the day,” the three time singles French Open champion said.