Djokovic launches his plan B for Roland Garros

This Sunday is a new edition of Roland Garros in Paris, where some of the racket stars have been training for several days. This is not the case of Novak Djokovic, who chose this year to play a tournament in recent days.

The lack of rhythm he showed after his cautious performance on the clay court tour, where he lost in the semi-finals of Monte Carlo and in the third round of Rome, led him to register for the Geneva tournament, a controversial decision because it would mean too much destruction at a time in his career where he increasingly dosed his participation on the circuit.

This is the second time he has played a week before Roland Garros. In 2021 he competed in the Belgrade tournament and the invention went well, because after winning the title at home he arrived in Paris in good condition. to also win the crown on the clay of Paris.

In Geneva he will play a maximum of four games. It starts this Wednesday (6 pm), directly in the round of 16, against the German Yannick Hanfmannwhich ended yesterday with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Andy Murray in a match that had to be postponed on Monday due to rain.

This will be the first match between the world number 1 and the veteran German player that, at 32 years old, this season he not only rediscovered his best tennis. He has only ten victories since January and his best result of the year was the quarterfinals in Córdoba, in February.

Rival entity

Despite being a 250 category tournament, three other top 15 players will meet this week in Geneva, Casper Ruud (7), Taylor Fritz (12) and Ben Shelton (15).

Fritz is the most important rival in his half of the draw and they will meet on Friday in a hypothetical semifinal, while there could be a repeat of the last Roland Garros final, as Ruud, current Godó champion, is in the bottom of the draw as the second seed.