Matteo Berrettini is playing his first Roland Garros quarter-final tonight.
On the other side of the net he will find Novak Djokovic who at this point in the Parisian tournament has already arrived in 15 editions.
This is enough to give an idea of what exam awaits the Roman tennis player, the last blue player in the field after the fall in the second round of Lorenzo Musetti and Jannik Sinner.
A small advantage could be granted by the forfeit of Roger Federer, who gave him a couple of days to rest, while the world number one played five sets against Musetti on Monday, even if the last two were almost symbolic due to the collapse. physicist from Carrarese.
Djokovic won in Paris in 2016 but was a finalist four more times, most recently last year.
In the only precedent he clearly defeated Berrettini, in the round robin of the ATP Finals 2019, when the 34-year-old from Belgrade won 6-2, 6-1.
In Paris Berrettini lost a set on his debut with the Japanese qualifier Taro Daniel (# 113 ATP), three of the Argentine Coria (# 94) were eliminated and then thanks to the success, again in three sets, on the South Korean Kwon (# 91) became the first blue to reach at least the eighths in all four majors.
Djokovic arrived quickly in the second round. And here Musetti put him on the ropes, snatching him two sets at the tie-break, before suffering the reaction of the king of world tennis. Alexander Zverev (n.6 in the world ranking) reached the semifinal at Roland Garros for the first time, clearly beating Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (n.46) with a score of 6-4, 6-1, 6-1. The 24 year old German, finalist of the last US Open. "It's very nice to be in the semifinals, but it's not enough for me" commented Zverev who has already played two semifinals in the Majors, both in 2020: at the US Open where he won against Pablo Carreno Busta before losing in the final to Dominic Thiem. and at the Australian Open where he was beaten by Thiem himself. "I'm playing pretty well,I hope to be able to continue playing the same and perhaps even better in the next match ".
