Djokovic, Nadal and Federer in the same half for Roland Garros

The Serbian Novak Djokovic, the Spanish Rafael Nadal and the Swiss Roger Federer finished in the same half of the men’s bracket for the French Open in Thursday’s draw, which means that only one of them will be able to access the final .

The Big Three top the overall table for men’s singles Grand Slam titles: Federer and Nadal lead at Roland Garros, where matches start Sunday, tied at 20, while Djokovic is 18.

Nadal defeated Djokovic in consecutive sets in the 2020 final to extend their record of 13 championships on the clay courts of Paris, but should they meet this time, it would be in the semi-finals. This time Nadal occupies the third position both in the ranking and in the pre-classification so he could have finished in either of the two halves of the bracket; as luck would have it, he will be in the middle of number one Djokovic.

The same happened to Federer, whose record for most weeks at the top of the ATP rankings was recently surpassed by Djokovic. The Swiss is currently the eighth racket in the world after playing just three games in the last 15 months due to two right knee surgeries. Federer could face Djokovic in the quarterfinals.

Another possible clash in that half of the key is that of Nadal and Russian Andrey Rublev, seventh in the world.

In the other half of the bracket, the possible quarterfinals would include the duels between the Russian Daniil Medvedev, second in the world ranking, and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, fifth; and the Austrian Dominic Thiem, fourth, against the German Alexander Zverev, sixth.

Medvedev has been runners-up twice in Grand Slam tournaments but is 0-4 in his career at the French Open. Thiem won the US Open last year and has lost two finals at Roland Garros, both to Nadal.

In women, the draw created the possibility of several interesting duels in the same half of the key in which the three-time major champion Angelique Kerber, Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion compete; Victoria Azarenka, the two-time Australian Open champion and third-seeded Aryna Sabalenka.

Other possible clashes in the quarterfinals would be: number one Ash Barty versus Elina Svitolina, fifth; Sofia Kenin (fourth) against Iga Swiatek (eighth), in what would be a rematch of the 2020 final that Swiatek won; and the duel of the second best in the world, Naomi Osaka, and Bianca Andreesscu, sixth.

Four-time major tournament champion Osaka announced via Twitter on Wednesday that she will not participate in press conferences during the French Open.

Nadal and Swiatek are the favorites to take the singles titles, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

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