Djok ready to make a racket in Paris
But Andy opts to skip French to focus on Wimbledon
ANDY MURRAY has withdrawn from the French Open as Novak Djokovic pulled off the perfect prep with a first title in more than six months.
The Scot, who turned 35 yesterday, took a wildcard for this month’s Madrid Open after performing a U-turn on plans to skip the whole clay-court season. He produced some of
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his best form since hip surgery to reach the third round, beating Dominic Thiem and Denis Shapovalov before illness forced him to pull out of what would’ve been a first clash with Djokovic since 2017. He remained in the Roland Garros draw and it appeared Murray, who has reunited with coach Ivan Lendl, could opt to play in the year’s second Grand Slam after all. But he has now pulled out and is sticking to his original plan to focus on building up to Wimbledon. Djokovic, though, will head to Paris – where the Slam starts proper on Sunday – with a first trophy since November after beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-0 7-6(5) in the Italian Open yesterday.
The Serb did not drop a set en route to the showpiece in Rome, having picked up his 1000th tour-level victory by beating Casper Ruud in the semi-final. That teed up a clash with Tsitsipas, a repeat of last year’s French Open Final, which Djokovic also won.
A sixth-successive victory for the 34-year-old over the Greek looked inevitable as he stormed through the first set with blistering hitting.
In the fourth game of the second set, an unforced error from Djokovic gave his opponent two break points, the first of which he converted to take a 3-1 lead in the set.
After Tsitsipas held to make it 4-1, Djokovic then went up a gear, winning five of the next seven games to take it to a tiebreak before sealing his sixth Italian crown and first title since the Paris Masters.
It has been the perfect week for Djokovic, who became only the fifth man in the Open era to reach the 1000 wins milestone after Jimmy Connors, Roger Federer, Lendl and Rafa Nadal.
Djokovic, who did not play in the first Slam of 2022 after being booted out of Australia, said: “I surprised myself.
“I had a clear game plan and I knew what to expect, so I knew what I had to do. But I did play a perfect first set.
“I have been building my form for the past couple of weeks and I knew my best shape on clay usually comes around Rome time, so it could not be better going into Roland Garros with a title.”