Djokovic and Nadal absent
No happy ending for Novak Djokovic.
Not vaccinated against Covid-19, the world number one still cannot enter the United States.
Despite the support of the American Tennis Federation and the organizers of the US Open, the Serb will miss the Californian Masters 1000 for the second consecutive year.
The insatiable record hunter, co-record holder, of the number of Grand Slams won (22) with Rafael Nadal, will therefore not enter the history of the tournament by becoming the first player to win six times.
No Djokovic.
No Nadal either.
Not yet recovered from his injury to the iliopsoas muscle, contracted in Melbourne, the Majorcan, triple winner in Indian Wells and still a finalist last year, guaranteed to get out of the top 10 for the first time since 2005,
To discover
ATP Ranking
Medvedev the man (in great) shape
In view of his dazzling form, Daniil Medvedev stands out as the logical favorite of the tournament.
Since his surprise elimination in the 3rd round of the Australian Open against Sebastian Korda, the winner of the US Open 2021 has once again become a winning machine by winning successively in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai.
Undefeated for 14 matches, the 6th in the world, the only player to have beaten Novak Djokovic in 2023 (in the semi-finals in Dubai) seems to have chased away the doubts, born of these last few months when he had lost a little of his superb.
If the hard remains his favorite surface, Indian Wells, is for the moment not a tournament which succeeds for him, since he has never exceeded the 8th in five participations.
This could soon be history.
It remains to be seen whether the physical will follow.
The Russian
The place of world number 1 at stake
If Medvedev, former world number one, has no chance of reclaiming the throne by the end of the tournament, Carlos Alcaraz will once again be at the top of world tennis if he wins in California.
No small feat though.
The physical form of the Spaniard raises questions.
Injured in the right leg at the start of the year and forfeited at the Australian Open, he hurt his right hamstring in the final in Rio and then did not line up in Acapulco last week .
But if he is 100% again, the prodigy from Murcia can still strike a blow on American soil, six months after his historic crowning at the US Open at the age of 19.
And when the physical goes, everything goes for Alcaraz.
The Spaniard had perfectly succeeded in his return in mid-February by
Swiatek, favorite, but...
World number one Iga Swiatek will try to become the first player to retain her title since Martina Navratilova, a performance achieved in 1991 and 1992. The undisputed queen of the circuit in 2022 has lost some of her splendor in recent weeks and has experienced a setback, at the Australian Open, eliminated in the 8th, by the Kazakh Elena Rybakina.
And if the 21-year-old Polish quickly found her way back to the titles, by winning in Doha, she gave up in the final in Dubai against the Czech Barbora Krejcikova, Swiatek is no longer untouchable and the competition impresses.
Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, winner of her first Major in Melbourne, started the year with a series of 13 consecutive victories, before yielding against Czech Krejcikova in Dubai.
Garcia wants to remember the beautiful things
They will be in all ten Tricolores, eight men and two women directly in the running in the main draw.
The return of Gaël Monfils, who has not played again since August 2022 and his retirement in the 3rd round of the Masters 1000 in Montreal, and the performance of Caroline Garcia, the leader of French tennis, will be particularly scrutinized.
For Monfils, 36, absent since Montreal in August 2022, due to a foot injury, it is above all a question of reassuring on the physical level, before dreaming of big results.
For Caroline Garcia, the situation is obviously different.
The 5th player in the world is one of the main outsiders for the title.
But the draw did not spare her and she has been quite irregular since the start of the season.
8th runner-up at the Australian Open,
she has since reached two WTA 250 finals, but has stumbled on the bottom step each time.
Her loss at the end of the suspense in Monterrey against Croatian Donna Vekic was particularly frustrating.
Remember beautiful things.
Winner of the Cincinnati Masters 1000 last summer, semi-finalist at the US Open in the process and winner of the Masters in Texas in the fall, the Lyonnaise has gotten into the good habit of shining on American soil in recent months.
