PARIS — Carlos Alcaraz and the person he simply changed atop the rankings, 22-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, had been positioned in the identical half of the French Open subject in Thursday’s draw and will face one another within the semifinals.
Alcaraz is seeded No. 1 at a Grand Slam match for the primary time and was robotically positioned within the high part of the bracket. Djokovic is No. 3 and so may have ended up on both half – had he landed within the backside, he and Alcaraz solely may have met within the closing at Roland Garros, the place 14-time champion Rafael Nadal will probably be lacking for the primary time since he made his debut on the clay-court main in 2005.
Play begins Sunday.
Typically, the earlier yr’s singles champions are invited to seem on the draw, so 2022 ladies’s winner Iga Swiatek was current Thursday. Nadal, in fact, was not. Still, he was the primary participant talked about on the outset of the ceremony by French Tennis Federation president Gilles Morreton, who famous, “Unfortunately, he cannot play the tournament this year.”
Swiatek didn’t seem to indicate any in poor health results from the damage proper thigh that prompted her to cease taking part in within the third set of her quarterfinal match in Rome final weekend. She indicated virtually instantly that the problem wouldn’t stop her from competing in Paris, the place she has received two of her three main trophies.
“It’s like my favorite tournament in the whole year, so I’m always excited to come back,” stated Swiatek, who has been ranked No. 1 for greater than a yr. “Before the tournament, I get this extra motivation to practice harder, to make everything better.”
The draw put her in a possible quarterfinal in opposition to No. 6 Coco Gauff in what can be a rematch of final yr’s French Open closing.
Alcaraz, who simply turned 20, and Djokovic, who simply turned 36, have performed one another simply as soon as beforehand, within the semifinals of the Madrid Open in May 2022. Alcaraz received that one 6-7 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (5) – a day after beating Nadal within the quarterfinals, changing into the primary participant to defeat each Djokovic and Nadal on the similar clay-court match. Alcaraz went on to gather the title there with a straight-set victory over Alexander Zverev within the closing.
It was Zverev who ended Alcaraz’s 14-match successful streak in the French Open quarterfinals final yr. That was additionally the spherical the place Nadal stopped Djokovic in a four-set, four-hour thriller.
This time, the lads’s quarterfinals by seeding can be Alcaraz, the reigning U.S. Open champion, in opposition to No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas, a two-time Slam finalist; Djokovic in opposition to No. 7 Andrey Rublev; No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open winner, in opposition to No. 8 Jannik Sinner; and No. 4 Casper Ruud, runner-up at the French Open and U.S. Open final yr, in opposition to No. 6 Holger Rune.
Other ladies’s matchups in that spherical could possibly be No. 4 Elena Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion, in opposition to No. 7 Ons Jabeur, a two-time main finalist; No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who received the Australian Open in January, in opposition to No. 5 Caroline Garcia; and No. 3 Jessica Pegula vs. No. 8 Maria Sakkari.
One participant who would have been seeded, Twenty ninth-ranked Paula Badosa, pulled out earlier than the draw, saying she acquired a stress fracture in her backbone throughout the Italian Open.
Swiatek will start her match with a gathering in opposition to Cristina Bucsa, a Spaniard ranked 67th whose profession report at the French Open is 0-1.
Some intriguing first-rounders embrace Sabalenka in opposition to Marta Kostyuk, Pegula in opposition to 2022 Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins, and Victoria Azarenka in opposition to Bianca Andreescu in a showdown between previous Grand Slam champions.
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