The tennis world will witness this Tuesday a new edition of the tennis ‘Clásico’ between Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros. A match that has not been without controversy since this possible crossover was known after the draw was held and that led several tennis figures to criticize the imbalance in the draw. An inequality that has become even more evident after the eliminations of Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the two great favorites from the bottom of the table.
As a result of this crossover between Djokovic and Nadal, which for many is an ‘early final’ of Roland Garros, A video published by Patrick McEnroe on May 21, after the draw, in which the former American tennis player asked Roland Garros to rethink his way of drawing the top seeds has been brought up to date to avoid these matches in somewhat early rounds.
In the video McEnroe regrets that the match between Djokovic and Nadal is held in the quarterfinals when it should be a match more typical of a final, advocating this change in seeding classification. “Come on, Roland Garros, it’s time to change the seeding system. Enough is enough. We already had a Nadal-Djokovic semi-final last year. One of the greatest matches of all time, semi-final. Tennis he needs these matches in the final. Now we can have a Djokovic-Nadal in the quarter-finals. Come on, let’s change this.”
It should be noted that Roland Garros distributes the number of seeds based on the ATP ranking and that, for this reason, Djokovic appears as the first favorite while Nadal is the fifth. However, other tournaments such as Wimbledon do take into account other criteria such as the results in last year’s edition or in other grass tournaments.aa when handing out the seeding numbers. We will see if McEnroe’s criticism has an effect or if, on the contrary, Roland Garros will continue to maintain the same criteria for awarding the seeded places.
