It will not be the last between the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic of Serbia in this edition of Roland Garros, because their trajectories have passed through the semifinals and both are drawn in the most difficult part.
The number 1 in the world made his debut against a player from the previous round and wanted to put the Serb, a two-time Grand Slam winner on clay, on his side. First, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the finalist in 2021, in the quarter-finals, which the Spaniard won in his previous four duels, the last of this year in Barcelona.
In the 16th round, Alcaraz will face the British Cameron Norrie, the butcher in Rio this year’s final, or the Italian Lorenzo Musetti, who will repeat last year’s Hamburg tournament with a Transalpine victory.
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Earlier, the Spaniard had to overcome the Canadian Dionysius Shapovalov in the third round.
The semifinal tournament between Alcaraz and Djokovic will live on, propelled to the status of top favorites in the absence of the defending champion of Spain Rafa Nadal, who with physical problems will not make the attack for the fifteenth victory in Paris.
The Serbian road to that duel is not easy. After making his debut against the American Aleksandar Kovasevic, he faced Spanish Alejandro Davidovich in the third round, who beat him last year in Monte Carlo.
In the quarterfinals, he will meet Pole Hubert Hurkacz in the world thirteen, whom the Serb has already defeated in Paris in 2019, and against whom he has lost only one in five duels, before the hypothetical semifinal against the Russian Andrey Rublev. in the quarterfinals of the past Australian Open.
The lower part of the draw has been left clearer, the path simpler for the number 2 in the ranking, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, who won his first tournament on clay last Sunday in Rome.
The Russian, who reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in 2021 after four years of falling out of the first round, and the eighth last year, will face Croatian Borna Coric or Alex de Minaur of Australia in the 16th round, while his hypothetical rival in the quarterfinals will be Italian Jannik Sinner, the last eight of the two of the last editions and quarter-finalists in 2020.
his theoretical rival in the semifinals would be Norway’s Casper Ruud, the last edition of the last edition and fourth in the world, who first beat the Dane Holger Rune, who had just beaten him in the semifinals in Rome.
