This Sunday begins the 54th Roland Garros edition, the first Grand Slam tournament to be held when the Professional Era began in 1968.
Full of stories and feats, without a doubt that the search for the 14 cup by Rafa Nadal, who will be able to celebrate it under the shadow of his own image, immortalized in a novel statue that was inaugurated a couple of days ago.
The draw put all the tennis morbid to the top of the male main draw since all the members of the Big 3 were randomly in that area, so the battle for a place in the final will be between the Spanish, third favorite , Novak Djokovic, first, and the winner of 20 of the greats, Roger Federer.
A look at the male painting
Rafa Nadal, who has a 100-2 streak in the tournament, will start against Australian Alexei Popyrin (he won 63 63 in his debut in Madrid 2021), and then could face the seventh seed, Andrey Rublev, Aslan Karatsev, Jannik Sinner (whom he defeated in the quarterfinals of 2020, the local Gael Monfils or the Argentine Diego Schwartzman, rival in the semifinals of the last edition.
The road to these potential encounters should see him play before Lorenzo Sonego (26th favorite), recent semifinalist in Rome, where he led Djokovic to a third set,
Djokovic and Federer, who are both going for their second Musketeers trophy, share the same quarter of the draw.
The Serbian begins his Parisian journey against the two-time fourth finalist in Australi, Tennys Sandgren, who beat him three times, and in the second round he could play against Pablo Cuevas, if the Salta player defeats former top 10, Lucas Pouille.
The Swiss, for his part, against the Uzbek Denis Istomin, who could never beat him in the previous seven games, and in the second round could face the former world three, Marin Cilic.
In the same room as Djokovic and Federer are ninth-seeded Matteo Berrettini, Master finalist David Goffin, and rising Felix Auger-Aliassime.
The new names
Daniil Medvedev, second seed, will be seen in the first round against Kazakh Alexander Bublik (1-0 in a record in a match five years ago) who has just defeated Shapalov in Madrid.
Stefanos Tsitsipas shares a quarter of the main draw with Medvedev and will make his debut against local Jeremy Chardy looking to repeat last year’s semifinals, when he lost in five sets to Djokovic.
Dominic Thiem, fourth seeded and two-time finalist in Paris, and 2018 Masters champion Alexander Zverev share a sector of the final draw. The Austrian will debit against Pablo Andújar, and could then face Casper Ruud, semifinalist in Madrid, and in the fourth round against the champion in Miami, Hubert Hurkacz.
Fernando Tetes for FútbolUy
FútbolUy – Montevideo Portal
–
