RG - Men’s Singles Preview

RG - MEN’S SINGLES PREVIEW 

All the rage is for Rafa Nadal to win his 14th Roland Garros trophy, and 21st major, in the next fortnight, and sure he deserves to start outright favourite again.

However, this year won’t be the cakewalk it has usually been.

There are a few candidates who genuinely have claims to threaten to dethrone the king of clay.

These are the perennial Novak Djokovic, the biggest nuisance to the Big 2 -  Dominic Thiem, the increasingly impressive Alexander Zverev, and the current leader of the ATP Race to Turin - Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Firstly, let’s see how difficult the road to glory looks on paper for Nadal.

Because of the rankings, Rafa is seeded #3, and for a change is not holding up either end of the draw.

Not an issue for the early rounds, where he should account for Alexei Popyrin and either Hugo Gaston or Richard Gasquet.

Third round will probably be either Cameron Norrie or Lorenzo Sonego (25).

Both have had clay court success this year, Sonego claiming the Cagliari title, and Norrie finalist in Estoril and Lyon.

Nadal will win through to the round of sixteen where it should be either young gun Jannik Sinner (18) or old hand Gaël Monfils (14).

I believe this will be a chance for Sinner to test his progress against Nadal in a major, and simultaneously test the champion.

Quarter final for Nadal is drawn to be Andrey Rublev (7) and I can’t see anything to prevent that occurring.

Rublev is sustaining a wonderful season, 29-8, and he defeated Nadal in the Monte Carlo quarter finals in April.

The dream semi final in the draw is Nadal v Novak Djokovic (1), and that would mean Roger Federer (8) exiting sometime before that.

Could be Djokovic in the quarters or even Matteo Berrettini (9) in the round of sixteen.

Djokovic will most likely make the semi finals - he is slipping into form, just having won the Belgrade Open, and no one in his section of the draw poses a great danger if he is at his best. Except Federer at his best.

The tournament would salivate at the thought of Djokovic v Federer in a quarter final, then Nadal playing the winner in a semi.

Dominic Thiem is predicted to eventually win Roland Garros, but he is currently in less than the form he’d want, certainly for week two.

He can work his way through the draw though, and he’d need to be firing for an expected clash with Casper Ruud (15) in the round of sixteen.

Ruud just won in Parma.

A quarter final against Zverev is what the draw says, and that would be a replay of the 2020 US Open final.

Alexander Zverev probably has Roberto Bautista Agut (11) with which to deal in the round of sixteen, and likely Daniel Evans (25) before that.

Although Daniil Medvedev is seeded #2 and drawn to meet Thiem in a semi, the Russian’s RG record is appalling, and his clay court performances generally are not much better.

Stefanos Tsitsipas (5) is perfectly placed to storm through to the final four, ensuring to pay respect to Sebastian Korda, Pablo Carreno Busta (12), Cristian Garin (22), Andrej Martin and others as he passes them by.

My predictions:

Semi finals:

Novak Djokovic (1) v Rafael Nadal (3)

Alexander Zverev (6) v Stefanos Tsitsipas (5)

Final:

Novak Djokovic (1) to defeat Stefanos Tsitsipas (5) in four sets.