In the absence of the Swiss Roger Federer, the two dominators of recent years, winners of 15 of the last 17 editions, will face the push of the new ones, who for now have not managed to bring down their hegemony, but have received a weighty reinforcement in the person of Carlos Alcaraz, the sensation of the season.
Caprices of the draw, Djokovic, Nadal and Alcaraz, the three main favorites, have been in the same area of the table, so only one of them will be able to reach the final.
The number 1 in the world conquered the throne last year that the Spaniard has won thirteen times and now seems in a good position to keep it, as evidenced by his victory in the recent tournament in Rome, the last big event on clay prior to the Parisian .
But neither the Serbian has shown extraordinary strength in recent weeks nor is the Spaniard a candidate to be buried early given the times that, in the past, he has been reborn when he was considered finished.
Much of the 2022 harvest on Parisian clay will depend on the state of Nadal’s left foot, the same one that took him away from Rome last week and placed him in front of the couch, broken between pain and passion for tennis.
No one would bet on him as a candidate for the fourteenth Musketeers Cup if it weren’t for the fact that the predictions do not work with the same tennis player who, at the beginning of the year, became the first man to lift his 21st Grand Slam in Australia a few months after having thought to hang the racket.
NTH CHRISTMAS RECOVERY
His umpteenth resurrection at Roland Garros would be less unexpected, but just as impressive. The Spaniard also added the Acapulco and Indian Wells tournaments, before a first injury to his ribs, which forced him to stop.
On paper, his main rival will be a Djokovic who has been leaving behind the bump at the beginning of the season, when his refusal to get vaccinated deprived him of the Australian Open and the US tour and caused him to have a mental slump.
The Serbian has only added one tournament, that of Rome, a symptom of his return to a high competitive level, ready to match Nadal’s 21 majors.
Alcaraz’s brilliant year places him, despite his 19 years, as the main threat to the two favorites. The Spaniard, sixth in the ranking, will live his second time on the French clay, but with more gallons, after having won Rio, Miami, Barcelona and Madrid, more winners than any other.
The unknown will be his answer to a tournament of this magnitude, where he has only participated five times, with last year’s quarterfinals in the United States as the best performance.
His triumphs in Barcelona and Madrid, where he brilliantly defeated Djokovic in the semi-finals, have shown that he can also perform at a high level on clay and, for many, he has managed to surpass the previous generation, who never managed to dethrone the “Big 3”.
In that group are the Russian Daniil Medvedev, number 2 in the world, who until last year had never passed the first round in Paris and whose season, after falling to Nadal in the final in Australia, is faltering.
Nor is it the best year for the German Alexander Zverev, with two finals behind him, while the Greek Stephanos Tsitsipas, winner for the second consecutive year in Monte Carlo and finalist in Rome, appears as a serious threat, although the final of the last year at Roland Garros, when he blew up a two-set lead.
Behind them, a long list of names, such as the Russian Andrey Rublev, the Norwegian Casper Ruud, the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime or the Italian Jannik Sinner, await their opportunity.
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