Rafael Nadal will bid the Olympic goodbye at Roland Garros, the house of his 14 French Opens. However, Nadal the fighter, now 38 years, is a man of glory’s sunset; just left the French Open early, ranked 161 in the world because of so many niggling injuries. Without a seed, he could be scheduled against top seed Novak Djokovic in the second round in their more than 60th encounter. Nadal has generally had a good h2h with Djokovic on clay and has won 8 of his 10 matches against the Serbian on Roland Garros and most recently, in the quarter-final clash of the current year’s French Open.
Nevertheless, in Nadal’s first match at the Olympic Games, he will face the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics, 83rd ranked player. Nadal was earlier a singles champion in the Beijing 2008 Olympics and a doubles champion alongside Marc Lopez in the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Of all the Grand Slam tournaments, the Olympics has been a different cup of tea for Djokovic as he only won a bronze medal in Beijing in 2008. In the 2024 season, and after a poor Wimbledon campaign where he was demolished in straight sets by Carlos Alcaraz, Djokovic is eager to regain the former. He will begin his Olympic tournament with a qualifier from Australia, Matthew Ebden who is currently ranked in the list. Although he has recently struggled in the clay court season, Djokovic is a strong player especially in the French Open having been crowned the champion three times.
Since Federer has retired, and Murray is bowing out of singles after these Olympics, Djokovic is in front of a new generation of players helmed by Alcaraz and Sinner. If Djokovic does not make it to the finals and win the US Open then the “big 4” decade-long domination of grand slams will be broken as it will be 22 years since none of the four captured a grand slam title.
As for Alcaraz, who will begin the confrontation with a player from Lebanon Hady Habib, will also play in doubles with Nadal. In addition to the above, there is also the defending champion Alexander Zverev, and the Russian fourth seed Daniil Medvedev. In the women ones, the best-ranked player is the Polish Iga Swiatek and the winner of the US Open – Coco Gauff.
