Rafael Nadal has not played since the Australian Open, the clay court season could seem accessible for Novak Djokovic. But the Serb is on a very bad dynamic, and his defeat this Wednesday at the Masters 1000 of Rome in three sets against Holger Rune (6-2 / 4-6 / 6-2) is not likely to reassure.
Holger Rune size pattern!
Great performance of the 20-year-old Dane who eliminates Novak Djokovic, world No. 1 and defending champion in Rome, in three sets (6-2, 4-6, 6-2)! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/4dzatM1Wf3
— Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) May 17, 2023
As in his last outing, at the ATP 250 in Banja Luka (6-4/7-6, against his compatriot Dusan Lajovic), the world number one stops in the quarterfinals. In the opening of the season on the ochre surface, in Monte-Carlo, Djokovic was knocked out by Italian Lorenzo Musetti in three sets (4-6/7-5/6-4) at the stage of the eighth-finals. A worrying series eleven days before the start of Roland Garros.
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Djokovic, who will lose the world No. 1 spot to Carlos Alcaraz on Monday, will come to Paris with an unremarkable record of five wins to three losses in three tournaments on clay this season.
At the age of 20, Rune won his second consecutive victory against the Serb, after the final of the Masters 1000 in Paris in November. For a place in the final, he will face the world No. 4 Casper Ruud or the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo (31st), opposed in the evening.
The Eternal City tournament definitely holds many surprises this year. In the sixteenth final, it was Carlos Alcaraz who had fallen by the wayside against the Hungarian Fábián Marozsán (135th in the world). For the first time since 2004, neither Nadal nor Djokovic will be in the final in Rome. Djokovic, who won six titles in the Italian capital, had not lost there in the quarter-finals for ten years.
