Sporting greats Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are two wins away from facing each other after the Olympic tennis draw 2024 set them up for a second-round showdown in Paris.
Nadal is inextricably linked to Paris because of his 14 French Open titles, making him by far the most successful player in the history of the country’s grand slam.
Djokovic is the only male with more grand slam titles overall than Nadal, winning 24 majors to put him two ahead of the Spaniard.
While second-ranked Djokovic remains one of the best players in the world, Nadal’s long-term struggles with injuries mean the 38-year-old is on the brink of retirement, having slipped to 161st in the world through prolonged periods of inactivity.
A 𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒚 matchup 🔥@DJOKERNOLE 🆚 @RAFAELNADAL@PARIS2024 | #TENNIS PIC.TWITTER.COM/D16X53HCYN
— ATP Tour (@atptour) JULY 25, 2024
Olympic tennis draw 2024
Top-seeded Djokovic meets Australian Matthew Ebden in the first round, in which unseeded Nadal has been drawn against Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.
The Serbian reached the Wimbledon final earlier this month in an extraordinarily rapid comeback from an operation on a knee injury which forced him out of the French Open, although he was beaten in straight sets in the decider at SW19 by Carlos Alcaraz, who is Nadal’s Olympics doubles partner.
Nadal was knocked out in the second round of this year’s Australian Open and the first round in Paris but may have hit form at the right time, reaching his first final since 2022 at the Swedish Open last week.
He heavily criticised his performance in a straight-sets defeat to first-time finalist Nuno Borges but was encouraged by his physical form and absence of more injury problems.
The #PARIS2024 tennis men’s singles draw is here!
Who you got?
🥇 ________
🥈 ________
🥉 ________#TENNIS #OLYMPICS PIC.TWITTER.COM/6RXZH76ICZ— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) JULY 25, 2024
Djokovic vs Nadal head to head
The storied pair last met in the 2022 quarter-finals at Roland-Garros, when Nadal won in four sets on his way to his last grand slam title.
Djokovic has won 30 of their 59 meetings but lost three of the last four, although his victory in that sequence came in the 2021 French Open semi-finals.
Elsewhere in the draw, second seed Carlos Alcaraz will open against Lebanon’s Hady Habib for the right to play Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor or Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie in the second round.
Defending champion Alexander Zverev will play Spain’s Jaume Munar, and Nadal and Alcaraz will take on sixth seeds Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni, of Argentina, in the first round of the doubles competition.
The Olympic Games tennis tournament begins on July 27 and concludes on August 4.
