At 38, Djoker still has feet for clay
Paris: For all of Novak Djokovic’s titles (100 in all) and Grand Slam trophies (24) and weeks at No. 1 (428, more than anyone else in tennis history), for all of his talent and determination, the guy still can find himself worrying about what is going on with his game.
Happened a little more than a month ago, even, when he was coming off three consecutive losses — his second skid of that length in 2025 — and was particularly concerned about being 0-2 on red clay this season as the start of the French Open approached.
So Djokovic decided to enter the Geneva Open and what do you know? He hasn’t lost since, going 8-0 heading into his quarterfinal match-up against No. 3 Alexander Zverev at Roland-Garros on Wednesday.
After leaving Geneva with the championship, Djokovic not only has won his first four matches in Paris, but has yet to drop a set.
“It happens if you lose a match or two consecutively, and then you don’t feel you have enough match play, you start to maybe doubt your game. You don’t want to be in that state of the mind coming into Grand Slams,” the 38-year-old
Serb said. “So I’m just glad it all turned out to be perfect for me, in that sense.”
He and Zverev, a 28-year-old German, know each other quite well, on a court and off.
This will be their 14th head-to-head contest on tour dating to 2017 — Djokovic holds an 8-5 advantage — and first since meeting in the semifinals at the Australian Open in January. That one ended after just one set: Djokovic stopped playing because of an injured hamstring, drawing boos from the ticket-buyers, and Zverev defended him.
Their only previous encounter in Paris came back in 2019, and Djokovic won their quarterfinal in three sets.
When Zverev, who credits Djokovic with serving as something of a mentor, looked ahead to Wednesday, he said: “It’s always a privilege to be on court with him.”
The other quarterfinal Wednesday will be No. 1 Jannik Sinner against unseeded Alexander Bublik, the first man from Kazakhstan to get this far at any Grand Slam tournament. The first two men’s quarterfinals were scheduled for Tuesday and, surprisingly, each one involved an American: defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain vs. No. 12 Tommy Paul, and No. 8 Lorenzo Musetti of Italy vs. No. 15 Frances Tiafoe.
There was a bit of buzz after first-match losses at tournaments in Monte Carlo and then Madrid about whether Djokovic should not even be thought of as a contender this time around at Roland-Garros, although it is a place where he has claimed the trophy three times.
