Novak Djokovic Names Decision That Helped Him To Play Well At Roland Garros
NewsThursday, 05 June 2025 at 22:21
Novak Djokovic is two victories away from winning an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, and is happy about a scheduling decision that gave him some momentum.
A few weeks before the 2025 French Open began, expectations for Djokovic were much lower than usual after he failed to win a match at the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters and the 2025 Madrid Open.
Those poor results led to his split with coach and former on-court rival, Andy Murray. Bad performances and instability in his coaching setup made a deep run at Roland Garros seem even more improbable.
Rather than just train before the season's Second Grand Slam, Djokovic accepted a Wild card into the 2025 Geneva Open. He also competed at the tournament last year, losing in the semi-final to Tomas Machac.
Djokovic went two steps further at this year's iteration of the Swiss tournament. The Serbian claimed an incredible 100th title by defeating Hubert Hurkacz in a thrilling final that kept the fans watching on the edge of their seats.
That momentum was carried into Roland Garros. Djokovic did not drop a set in his opening four matches before recovering from losing the first set to defeat Alexander Zverev on Wednesday during the night session.
Djokovic mentioned his decision to play in Geneva during the post-match press conference after beating Zverev. Although the 38-year-old is confident he would have played well at Roland Garros anyway, he said going to Geneva was the correct decision.
"It definitely helped my confidence level and my game (...) I still believe that my game would still be good even if I didn't play Geneva and I came directly here because, as I said, I thrive on Grand Slams and manage to play the best tennis always. But nevertheless, it was good decision to go there."
Although Djokovic's level in Geneva and Paris has been excellent, he will almost certainly need to be even better against the world No. 1 Jannik Sinner in what promises to be a blockbuster semifinal encounter.
Djokovic has lost his last four matches against Sinner (including the Six Kings Slam Exhibition), but they were all on hard courts. Their sole clay-court meeting was in 2021, which the 24-time Grand Slam champion won.
That match will not affect their Roland Garros semifinal since Sinner has drastically improved in the four years since. He has dominated hard-court tournaments, winning the last three Grand Slams on the surface.
Sinner hopes to reach a first major final outside of hard courts by beating Djokovic. The Italian's return to the sport at last month's 2025 Italian Open was highly impressive after not competing since the 2025 Australian Open.
Although toppling Sinner is a considerable challenge, Djokovic's victories against Carlos Alcaraz at the Australian Open and Sinner at Roland Garros show he can still play great tennis and compete against the best players in the world.
Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Musetti's semifinal is scheduled for the afternoon. That means Djokovic and Sinner will compete during the evening when the conditions are much slower.
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