2023-05-17 23:53:15
Rafael Nadal having not played since the Australian Open, the clay season could seem accessible for Novak Djokovic. But the Serb is on a very bad dynamic, and his defeat this Wednesday at the Masters 1000 in Rome in three sets against Holger Rune (6-2/4-6/6-2) is not reassuring.
As in his last outing, at the ATP 250 in Banja Luka (6-4/7-6, against his compatriot Dusan Lajovic), the world number one stops in the quarter-finals. At the start of the season on the ocher surface, in Monte-Carlo, Djokovic was knocked out by the Italian Lorenzo Musetti in three sets (4-6/7-5/6-4) at the stage of the round of 16. A disturbing series eleven days before the start of Roland Garros.
Djokovic, who will lose the world No. 1 spot to Carlos Alcaraz on Monday, will come to Paris with a flat record of five wins and three losses in three clay-court tournaments this season.
At 20, Rune obtained his second victory in a row against the Serb, after that in the final of the Masters 1000 in Paris in November. For a place in the final, he will face world No. 4 Casper Ruud or Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo (31st), opposed in the evening.
The Eternal City Tournament definitely has many surprises in store this year. In the round of 16, it was Carlos Alcaraz who fell by the wayside against the Hungarian Fábián Marozsán (135th in the world). For the first time since 2004, neither Nadal nor Djokovic will be in the final in Rome. Djokovic, titled six times in the Italian capital, had not lost there in the quarter-finals for ten years.
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