PETE ZIEBRON
So much outrage was hurled at Roland Garros when the men's draw was announced. How dare they place Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in the same quarter. Next, why is Carlos Alcaraz in the same half as Djokovic and Nadal? Like Roland Garros rigged the draw...... uh, no, that does not happen. Nadal is the 5th seed so there was a 25% chance that he would end up in the Djokovic quarter. Bingo.
Meanwhile, last year's French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas will have a barn-burner to begin his tournament. Right out of the gate, the Greek faces Lorenzo Musetti. All he happened to do last year in Paris was march into the round of 16 and take a two sets to love lead over Djokovic, the eventual Champion, before cramping took over and he won just one more game before retiring 0-4 down in the 5th set. Just two weeks prior to the start of the French, Musetti faced Tsitsipas in the Lyon semifinals and took the opening set 6-4 before the Greek won 12 of the last 15 games to advance to the Final.
The Italian has not matched the form he showed one year ago in Paris. He arrives with 14 clay court matches played this year. In March, I had a front row Center Court vantage point for his match against American JJ Wolf at the Phoenix Challenger. Despite winning just 5 games in the 2nd round match, I liked what I saw, namely his movement and fluidity on court as well as the ability to switch from defense to offense.
Tsitsipas had very good results at the clay court Masters, winning Monte-Carlo, reaching the semis in Madrid and the final in Rome. However, the first coupe of days at the French have illustrated that solid match play and form at the events leading up to the tournament have not necessarily resulted in a replication of such play at this major from those who have lost and struggled to win their opening match.
While nearly everyone in the world is watching Djokovic, Nadal and Alcaraz, I prefer to focus on Tsitsipas and especially his opening match against Musetti. Tsitsipas has won 11 of his last 13 matches at Roland Garros and 14 of his last 17 - his only losses:
2021 Final vs. Djokovic 76(6) 62 36 26 46
2020 Semi Final vs. Djokovic 36 26 74 64 16
2019 R16 vs. Wawrinka 67(6) 75 46 63 68
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