Novak Djokovic will unusually play in both singles and doubles draw at the 2022 Tel Aviv Open as he will pay respect to his good friend Jonathan Erlich, who is retiring from professional tennis.
When they competed at Queen's Club in 2010, Novak Djokovic and Jonathan Erlich won the only doubles title of the 35-years-old Serbian after defeating Karol Beck and David Skoch. They can add another title 12 years later because the Israeli player is finishing his career at the 2022 Tel Aviv Opened and he will be accompanied by the 21-time Grand Slam champion.
It's very rare to see Djokovic on a doubles court, but he will make an exception for his friend. He had a chance to practice also at the Laver Cup, where he defeated Jack Sock and Alex de Minaur alongside Matteo Berrettini and prepared for the 2022 Tel Aviv Open, where he won't have an easy draw.
Djokovic and Erlich won't be obviously a seeded duo and so in the first round, they could meet one of the seeded pairs. However, they were lucky as they will meet a team that entered the draw using a protected ranking - Sander Arends and Bart Stevens.
If the 2010 Queen's Club champions win, they will meet winners of the match between the third-seeded Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni or another Dutch duo David Pel and Botic van de Zandschulp.
In case of another victory, Djokovic and Erlich will most probably meet the second-seeded Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies and their 2022 Tel Aviv Open journey can finish in the final against the first-seeded Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop or the fourth-seeded Ariel Behar and Maximo Gonzalez.
Novak Djokovic will also compete in a singles draw, where he's the first-seeded and on his way to the title, he can meet likes of Marin Cilic, Dominic Thiem and Diego Schwartzman, who are all part of the star-studded entry list.
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