Diego Schwartzman will take on a highly complex challenge this Sunday at Roland Garros when he faces Serbian Novak Djokovic, top seed and current French Grand Slam champion, in the round of 16. The “Little One”, ranked 16th in the world ranking and the only Argentine still in competition, will face Djokovic before 8 o’clock on the Suzanne Lenglen court, in a match that will be televised on ESPN and the Star+ platform. The match between the Argentine and the Serbian will be the second of the day that will begin at 6 with the cross between the Italian Martina Trevisan (59) and the Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich (47).
The 29-year-old Argentine will try to beat the Serbian for the first time, who seems focused on retaining the title and reaching 21 Grand Slam wins. If successful, he could match the record holder, the Spanish Rafael Nadal, and in turn pass the Swiss Roger Federer, who has 20 “Majors” in his collection.
Schwartzman stars in Paris for his fourth access to the Roland Garros round of 16 in the last five years, with the high points of the 2020 semifinals and the 2021 quarterfinals, both times beaten by Nadal.
The tennis player who emerged from the Club Náutico Hacoaj showed a performance from low to high during the week, with wins against the Russian Andrey Kuznetsov (228) in four sets, and the Spanish Jaume Munar (87) in five sets, to bring out his better version against the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (20), whom he beat in straight sets and having given up just six games, 6-3, 6-1 and 6-2.
Djokovic, meanwhile, had a flawless campaign with victories without giving up a set over Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka (99), Slovakian Alex Molcan (38) and Slovenian Aljaz Bedene (195). In the background, the Balkan has everything to win, since he beat the Argentine the six times they were face to face: US Open 2014, Roland Garros 2017, Rome 2019 and 2020 in the final, Australia 2020 and the same year in the group stage of the Masters played in London.
The winner of the match between Schwartzman and Djokovic will play in the quarterfinals against Rafael Nadal (5) or Felix Auger Aliassime (9). The match between the Spaniard and the Canadian is scheduled for around 10 on Philippe Chatrier Center Court.
Other attractive matches that he proposes on Sunday in Paris are those that will be animated by the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz (6) with the Russian Karen Khachanov (25) and the German Alexander Zverev (3) against the surprising Spaniard Bernabé Zapata Miralles (131), who crossed the qualification and had the pleasure of winning three games.
