Djokovic Beats Royer, Fonseca Next: 'Clay Is Still Teaching Me'
The Belgrade native moved into the Roland Garros third round 6-3, 6-2, 6-7(9), 6-3 over Valentin Royer, with 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca waiting on Friday at Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Three hours and twenty-eight minutes after the first ball, Djokovic walked off Court Philippe-Chatrier with a towel on his neck and made one short gesture toward his box. Nobody in the stands knew what it meant.
Only in the locker room did his physiotherapist explain to reporters:
It was a message that everything is fine, but that it was not easy.
Royer dictated the match into the third set. At moments, the Belgrade native looked like he was deep into a fifth hour, not a third.
How the match went
On Wednesday evening, Djokovic closed out the Roland Garros second round against the 22-year-old Frenchman 6-3, 6-2, 6-7(9), 6-3. The third set was a thriller in which he held a match point in the tie-break at 6-5 and missed it.
After twenty minutes of serving machine tennis from the left-handed home favourite, Royer took the third set. That was where his evening ended.
In the fourth set, Djokovic settled the match with a break in the fifth game and held serve comfortably the rest of the way.
What the match reveals for the third round
Djokovic’s numbers were not his best in Paris:
- 64 percent first-serve in, decent by his standards but not brilliant
- six break points converted from nine chances
- 27 net approaches, 19 points won
Royer pulled off angles that you rarely see against the very best. But his serve was not heavy enough to keep the Belgrade native pinned to the baseline.
Those 27 net approaches are a number worth examining. They show how much his clay-court short game has matured.
The record he broke
A capital letter belongs on this one. With this win, Djokovic moved past Roger Federer for most matches at a single Grand Slam, reaching 120. The Swiss played 119 at Wimbledon.
That is a solo record. And it landed exactly ten years on from the first Grand Slam after the first injury warnings of Djokovic’s career.
Who Fonseca is
Joao Fonseca, a 19-year-old Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro, sits at world No. 56. To reach the second round, he beat Britain’s Jack Draper in five sets on Tuesday. He left the court with a strained back muscle.
On Wednesday, Roland Garros doctors confirmed that Fonseca can play on Friday, but estimated his odds of going five sets at 50 percent.
Djokovic and the Brazilian have met just once before. It was three years ago at the Madrid Masters, where Fonseca had a wild card and the Belgrade native won 6-0, 6-1 in 49 minutes.
Since then, the kid has grown up. He won his first ATP title in January in Buenos Aires. In his recent matches, he flips the script with that distinctive Brazilian forehand that comes from the hip. Djokovic should be careful in the first two sets.
What comes next
Personally, I give Djokovic 70 percent to advance. The reason is that Royer drained him physically on Wednesday, especially in the third set. Fonseca is 19, with ten days more rest than his older rival.
Coach Marian Vajda said after the match only:
We got where we needed to be, but Paris is never easy, even if you are the greatest of all time.
The match is scheduled second on Friday at Chatrier, most likely starting around 2 p.m. local time. If the Belgrade native gets past Fonseca, his likely fourth-round opponent is Britain’s Cameron Norrie, who breezed past Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman on Wednesday. That sets up the test for a serious quarter-final run, which looks more realistic for Djokovic this year than the semis.
