PARIS: Rafa Nadal was handed a tricky begin to what’s anticipated to be his farewell to the French Open because the document 14-times champion was drawn towards fourth seed Alexander Zverev within the first spherical whereas ladies’s champion Iga Swiatek and fellow four-time main winner Naomi Osaka are on a second-round collision course.
Defending males’s champion Novak Djokovic will start his quest for a twenty fifth Grand Slam crown towards native hope Pierre-Hugues Herbert in his opener.
Unseeded Nadal, who missed his favorite Grand Slam match as a result of damage final 12 months, has plummeted down the rankings throughout an prolonged spell on the sidelines and has mentioned he expects to retire after this season.
The pairing drew an audible gasp within the room and the 2 will meet for the primary time since their 2022 semi-final conflict at Roland Garros which Nadal gained after Zverev suffered an damage and retired.
“It’s coming slightly early within the match certainly,” former world primary and match director Amelie Mauresmo mentioned in regards to the Nadal-Zverev pairing. “That is excellent news for neither of them.”
Nadal, the winner of twenty-two Grand Slam titles, will flip 38 subsequent week and this season will likely be his final on tour.
He holds a 7-3 profitable head-to-head document towards Germany’s Zverev with 5 of these victories approaching clay.
Zverev, 27, arrives in Paris on the again of lifting the Rome Open title final weekend.
In addition to 14 titles in Paris, Nadal can boast a document of 112 wins and simply three losses, two of which got here towards Djokovic who will likely be chasing a fourth French Open title.
“I think about that trying on the draw, Nadal is just not going to be delighted,” mentioned Mauresmo. “Zverev is in excellent form, clearly it seems very sophisticated. However Nadal is a warrior, a unprecedented competitor. It’s Rafa so something is feasible.”
Ought to Nadal win the match, he might face 2021 US Open winner Daniil Medvedev within the quarter finals.
There have been cheers from the viewers when Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka was drawn towards fellow three-time Grand Slam winner, Briton Andy Murray.
“It’s an outstanding matchup,” Mauresmo, who used to teach Murray, mentioned in regards to the match with Wawrinka.
The 37-year-old Murray, the 2016 runner-up, can be competing on the match for the ultimate time.
He and Wawrinka, 39, have met 22 occasions in a two-decade rivalry with Murray boasting a 13-9 edge.
Three of these clashes have come at Roland Garros with Murray profitable within the semi-finals in 2016 whereas the Swiss got here out on prime within the last-four in 2017 and first spherical in 2020.
Djokovic has struggled within the first half of 2024 and is but to win a title this 12 months. The Serbian was knocked out of the Italian Open within the third spherical this month after suffering a freak head damage.
The world primary turned 37 on Wednesday and marked the event by profitable the 1,one centesimal match of his profession in Geneva.
Following Thursday’s draw, Djokovic is seeded to face Zverev within the semi-finals.
World quantity two Jannik Sinner, who took Djokovic’s Australian Open title in January, faces Christopher Eubanks of the US.
Third-seeded Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, a semi-finalist in Paris in 2023, performs a qualifier.
Sinner and Alcaraz are seeded to satisfy within the semi-finals however each males have been affected by accidents which compelled them to skip the Rome occasion.
Within the ladies’s draw, defending champion and world primary Swiatek is in a sizzling streak of type after profitable each the Madrid Open and Italian Open, and is favorite to assert her fourth title at Roland Garros.
Nevertheless, the Pole might face quite a lot of powerful opponents in her quarter-final, together with four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka, Miami Open winner Danielle Collins and Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova.
“This season has been has been actually nice already for me,” Swiatek mentioned on the draw ceremony. “I do know that I can regulate to any type of situations even in a brief period of time.”
World quantity two Aryna Sabalenka meets Erika Andreeva whereas Elena Rybakina, who reached the semi-finals in Madrid however was compelled to tug out of Rome as a result of sickness, takes on Belgium’s Greet Minnen.
US Open champion Coco Gauff, who reached the ultimate of the French Open in 2022, will play a qualifier within the first spherical and will face Ons Jabeur in a mouth-watering quarter-final conflict.
First-round match-ups to regulate embody Australian Open runner-up Zheng Qinwen towards common French veteran Alize Cornet, who has mentioned she’s going to retire after the French Open, and two-time main finalist Karolina Pliskova towards fifteenth seed Elina Svitolina, a three-time Grand Slam semifinalist.
One anticipated withdrawal was introduced Thursday: fifth-ranked Jessica Pegula, an American who has reached six main quarter-finals.
Mauresmo mentioned Swiatek was the favorite within the ladies’s draw, whereas there was plenty of uncertainty within the males’s singles. “The whole lot is open,” she added.
Revealed in Daybreak, Could twenty fourth, 2024