Novak Djokovic’s challenges before Roland Garros

Novak Djokovic It’s been a rough few months. After the title of him in the Open the Australia, the Serbian reappeared in Dubai, losing to Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals, seeing himself totally surpassed by the great version of the Russian. Later, unable to travel to the United States due to not being vaccinated against Covid-19, Nole stayed in Europe training on clay to try to start the tour in the best possible way. In fact, he even commented that he had trained much more than years ago, something that added to the physical problems of Rafael Nadal It caused expectations to skyrocket around him.

What’s more, there were even those who placed him as a favorite to win Roland GarrosSeeing that Nadal was still not recovering and that Alcaraz was also suffering physical discomfort from Indian Wells and Miami, everything indicated that Nole would be the one who would do the best preparation to get to Paris. However, his first two tournaments -Monte Carlo and Banja Luka- have not gone as expected and his elbow has once again caused him discomfort, which has caused him to decide to skip the Mutua Madrid Open to recover from his physical problems and continue working on his main objective, to arrive in the best conditions for the Paris event.

OBJECTIVES BEFORE ROLAND GARROS

Logically, for Djokovic the most important thing is to make sure he is 100% at Roland Garros, as he commented after talking about his absence in Madrid: “I hope to be in top form at Roland Garros. I want to play my best tennis there.”. For this reason, Nole is aware that he has a lot of work ahead of him both on and off the courts, since what has been seen to date on clay has raised many doubts, since at that level it is practically impossible to think that the Serbian going to have options to win in Paris.

The first thing of all will be to recover well from those physical discomforts that he has in his elbow and continue to refine his game, especially at key moments, since Djokovic’s strong point throughout his career has not been seen practically at all in these two tournaments. . It should be remembered that against Musetti he lost a match that he dominated with a set and break up, while against Lajovic he relented after only converting 1 of 16 break points and after wasting a 6-3 lead in the second set tiebreak, something unusual in Nole and especially in two games so followed in time.

In addition, these defeats and his absence in Madrid will mean that Djokovic loses a lot of points and that in the event that Alcaraz repeats the crown at the Conde de Godó and in Madrid, he will be in an ideal position to snatch the number 1 in the world from him in the Masters 1000 of Rome. Let’s remember that Nole defends the title there, so he will not be able to score points in said appointment and although it is clear that it still remains to be seen how Alcaraz is doing in the capital of Spain, it seems clear that if he signs a good result, it will be very Djokovic probably doesn’t even have the option of defending the ATP scepter in Rome, since it could help the Spaniard to achieve a discreet result in Italy to get that condition just before Roland Garros starts.

In any case, little would change for Nole to arrive in Paris as number 1 or do it as number 2, since his team would be very similar and he would not collide with the Murcian until a hypothetical final. Therefore, what is really important for Djokovic in these remaining weeks is to recover and show better tennis in Rome, where he is expected to compete again. There, over the years, he has achieved great performances that have later helped him at Roland Garros, a tournament that could put the Serb for the first time as the leader in the race to be the tennis player with the most Grand Slams in history. All this means that we have to be very aware of how Djokovic is evolving, because although there are now many doubts around him, we all know how quickly a player of his stature can wake up.