Rafael Nadal to Face Alexander Zverev in Highly Anticipated Roland Garros Match

Rafael Nadal will debut against the number 4 in the world, Alexander Zverev, against whom he beat seven of the ten times he faced him (Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman)

The second Grand Slam of the season is about to begin and will have a strong start: Rafael Nadal, the king of Roland Garros, will star in the most attractive match at the start of the main draw against the current 4th in the world, Alexander Zverev.

The draw that was held in the last few hours paired the 37-year-old Spanish tennis player with the German: Rafa, who won the crown 14 times in Paris, would play for the last time in his favorite competition against a 27-year-old opponent whom he already faced in another ten times with a favorable balance of seven wins. Precisely the last time they saw each other was two years ago in the semifinals of Roland Garros, in a presentation that ended with Zverev’s retirement due to an unfortunate injury.

Zverev had to leave the court on crutches during the semifinal against Nadal in 2022 (Photo: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes)

Among the most important initial clashes is that of the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who will go against the local Pierre-Hugues Herbert (33 years old and 143rd in the ranking) who received a wild card. The other great candidate for the crown is the Italian Jannik Sinner, who will begin his course against the American Christopher Eubanks (43rd). There will also be many eyes focused on what the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz can do, who hopes to find out about his rival who will arrive from qualifying.

On the Argentine side, Francisco Cerúndolo will clash with the German Yannick Hanfmann (85th), Pedro Cachin against the North American Tommy Paul (14th), Federico Coria against the American Taylor Fritz (12th), Tomás Etcheverry will face each other with the Frenchman Arthur Cazaux (77th), Mariano Navone against the Spanish Pablo Carreño Busta (1047th, used the protected ranking), Thiago Tirante with the Spanish Pedro Martínez (49th) and Sebastián Báez waits for an opponent from the qualy.

In the women’s team, the novelty will be the debut in this instance of one of the country’s great promises: Julia Riera (21 years old – 93rd in the world) left the qualy behind and will seek to have a successful debut in the main draw against a rival which will be defined in the next few hours.

Although the other representatives in the classification (Martina Capurro Taborda, Solana Sierra and Paula Ormaechea) did not manage to overcome that filter, Argentina will have two other tennis players as champions at Roland Garros: Nadia Podoroska (59th) will play a high-risk duel against the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka (21st) and María Lourdes Carlé (83rd) will go against the Belgian Elise Mertens (27th).

It must be kept in mind that there are two more Argentines who can be added to this list: Román Burruchaga (145°) will meet the Slovakian Jozef Kovalík (146°) in the third round of qualifying for a ticket to the main draw. A possible, but even more complex case is that of Facundo Bagnis, who withdrew from the qualifying duel against the Japanese Shintaro Mochizuki and could make the jump as a lucky loser if there are casualties, but for that he should also be fine with the discomfort in the left leg that took him out of the clash against the Asian in the second set.

Nor should we lose sight of the fact that world number 1 in doubles Horacio Zeballos and his Spanish partner Marcel Granollers will pursue the first Grand Slam title as a duo: they reached the Wimbledon final twice and the US Open final once, without luck.

Tomás Martín Etcheverry took a key leap in his career by reaching the quarterfinals of the 2023 edition of Roland Garros (Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne)

While the expectation for the start of the Grand Slam on clay grows, the focus of Argentine tennis is on the semifinal that Etcheverry will play at the ATP 250 in Lyon: he will go against the Argentine nationalized Italian Luciano Darderi with the dream of reaching the third final of his professional career (he fell in the two he played so far). It must be taken into account that Tomi made a leap in quality in his career after reaching the quarterfinals of Roland Garros in 2023 and there are great expectations about what he can do now.

2024-05-23 13:29:54
#Roland #Garros #draw #drawn #luxury #premiere #Nadal #Zverev #qualified #Argentines #play