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In recent days, the Internazionali BNL d'Italia have officially kicked off, with the last rounds of qualifying for the main draw. Rain permitting, the first rounds of the prestigious Roman event will take place. Many reasons to follow the Masters 1000, based at the Foro Italico.
One of these is undoubtedly the fight in first place in the ranking. With the latest great performances in Barcelona and Madrid, where he confirmed the titles won last year, Carlos Alcaraz will arrive virtually at this great appointment as world number one.
Starting next week, the young Spanish enfant prodige will steal the scepter from Novak Djokovic for the second time in the last year, who will lose the points from the victory in Rome.
The situation ahead of the Roland Garros
A hard blow for the Serbian champion, who is not going through a very brilliant period of form, as evidenced by his recent not excellent results on clay.
The 22-time champion, he hasn't played two games in a row in a tournament since March, when he stopped in the final against Daniil Medvedev. From that moment on, the Balkan record-man moved directly to his home in Monte-Carlo, having had to skip the 'Sunshine Double' due to the well-known events relating to the vaccine.
In the city of the Principality, things did not go much better. After having passed the first round with difficulty against the little-known Ivan Gakhov, Nole surrendered to our Lorenzo Musetti. Even in the family tournament in Banja Luka, he stopped against his compatriot Dusan Lajovic.
After missing the Mutua Madrid Open, to recover physical and mental energy, Novak showed up in Rome to defend his title, but not only. The Serbian is not guaranteed to arrive as world number 2 at the Roland Garros 2023 and, therefore, the privilege of being the best player pre-qualified in his half of the draw and therefore guaranteed to avoid clash with Alcaraz until a final hypothesis.
To secure this advantage, Djokovic will have to deal with the Russian Medvedev. In order for Nole to appear in Paris as the number two seed, the following situations must NOT occur:
1) Medvedev winner of the tournament with Djokovic not qualified for the final.
2) Medvedev in the final with Djokovic not qualified for the quarterfinals.
If Djokovic qualified for the final instead, he would avoid any other hypothesis.
