PARIS (AP) – Two most-talked-about men at this year’s French Open, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, finally play their first matches on Tuesday.
Nadal, the champion nine of the past 10 years, takes on Quentin Halys, an 18-year-old wild-card entry from France who is ranked 296th and has never played a match at a major tournament.
Next on Court Philippe Chatrier will be the No. 1-seeded Djokovic, whose bid to complete a career Grand Slam starts off against Jarkko Nieminen, a 33-year-old from Finland ranked 87th. Djokovic has never lost a Slam match to a player that far down in the rankings.
Much of the pre-tournament buzz was about the potential quarterfinal matchup between Nadal and Djokovic, possible because Nadal’s poor-for-him results dropped his ranking to its lowest point in a decade.
If everyone else wants to look ahead, the players who met in two of the past three finals at the French Open do not.