It’s no surprise that a Spaniard leads the ATP Tour in clay-court match-win percentage for the 52 weeks leading up to Roland Garros. But rather than King of Clay Rafael Nadal, it’s the 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz who paces the field, according to statistics from the Infosys ATP Performance Zone.

Alcaraz holds a 23-3 clay record over the last 52 weeks, including his third-round run in his Roland Garros debut last year — good for an 88.5 per cent match-win rate. Alcaraz has won four clay titles in the last year, with three this season. He won his first ATP Tour title in Umag last July, and followed it up with triumphs in Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona and Madrid this season to rise to a career-high of No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Remarkably, the man from Murcia has won more titles than matches lost on that clay-court run, which is highlighted by a 16-1 mark on the surface in 2022.

Novak Djokovic is second on the clay win-percentage list, compiling a 21-3 record for an 87.5 per cent win rate. Seven of those victories came last year in his Roland Garros title run, and five came last week en route to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia trophy. Djokovic also won the one-off Belgrade Open just prior to Roland Garros one year ago, scoring four match victories to claim the title in his home city.

Both Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud have more clay wins than Alcaraz over the last 52 weeks, with the Norwegian earning a tour-leading 28 wins and five titles over that period. Tsitsipas stands at 25-5 with two titles (Lyon 2021, Monte Carlo 2022), his 83.3 per cent win rate third behind Djokovic. Ruud’s five clay titles have came in Geneva, Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbuhel last season and in Buenos Aires this February.

Diego Schwartzman is the only other player to reach the 20-wins mark in the last 52 weeks. His 22-10 record gives him a 66.8 win rate, putting him 10th by that measure.

In addition to multiple-title winners Alcaraz, Djokovic, Tsitsipas and Ruud, the following men have also lifted clay trophies in the past 12 months (listed by clay-court match-win rate): Pablo Carreno Busta, Sebastian Baez, Andrey Rublev, Sebastian Korda, David Goffin, Pedro Martinez , Reilly Opelka, Holger Rune and Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

The unveiling of the Roland Garros men’s singles draw on Thursday served up a potential quarter-final meeting between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, with Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev joining them in a loaded top half. But before we look too far ahead at the possibilities, ATPTour.com takes a look at five of the best matchups that are already locked in.

[4] Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) vs. Lorenzo Musetti (ITA)

Stefanos Tsitsipas beat #NextGenATP Italian Lorenzo Musetti twice in 2021, on the hard courts of Acapulco and the clay of Lyon — both at the semi-final stage. The Greek enters Roland Garros with a 31-10 record and one title this season, his 31 match wins leading the ATP Tour. Tsitsipas has posted a 14-1 record on the European clay, kickstarted by his Monte Carlo title defense in April.

Musetti, who reached a career-high of No. 51 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings in early May, enters Paris after a successul run to the Madrid last 16 as a qualifier. The 20-year-old defeated Top-50 opponents Ilya Ivashka and Sebastian Korda before retiring with a leg injury against Alexander Zverev in the Spanish capital. Musetti missed his the Internazionali BNL d’Italia and was handed a tough first-round draw as he looks to bounce back in Paris.

[14] Denis Shapovalov (CAN) vs. Holger Rune (DEN)

The first meeting between these two men comes on one of the game’s biggest stages, with both players entering Paris in strong form.

While Denis Shapovalov has the superior 2022 record at 16-9 to Holger Rune’s 9-9, the Dane has won an individual title this season while his opponent has only been as far as the semi-finals in Dubai. The 19-year-old Rune earned his first ATP Tour title in Munich, helping him move up to third place in the Pepperstone ATP Race To Milan.

Shapovalov opened the season by helping Team Canada to the ATP Cup title. He reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open, Doha and Rome in addition to his Dubai run.

[8] Casper Ruud (NOR) vs. [WC] Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was done no favours ahead of his swan song at Roland Garros. The 37-year-old Frenchman faces one of the Tour’s most feared clay-court stars in the opening round as he prepares for the final tournament of his professional career.

Casper Ruud leads the ATP Tour with 28 clay-court wins over the past 52 weeks, according to Infosys ATP Performance Zone stats, not including his progress to the semi-finals week in Geneva. He rebounded from a 4-4 start to the European clay swing to reach the last four in consecutive weeks in Rome and Geneva. 

Tsonga enters Paris with a 2-5 tour-level record in 2022, with both of his victories coming in France (Montpellier, Marseille). His meeting with Ruud will be the pair’s first ATP Head2Head matchup.

[16] Pablo Carreno Busta vs. [WC] Gilles Simon (FRA)

Pablo Carreno Busta and Giles Simon will meet for the seventh time in the Roland Garros opening round, but for the first time since 2019. The Spaniard leads the series 4-2, including a 2-1 mark on clay. Four of their previous meetings have come at the ATP Masters 1000 level, in addition to a second-round meeting at the 2018 Australian Open, won by Carreno Busta via retirement.

Simon is playing in his final Roland Garros, having announced his plans to retire following the 2021 season. With a 498-390 career record (1-4 this season), the Frenchman is two wins away from a milestone 500th career victory. 

Carreno Busta could also reach a match-wins landmark in Paris — he enters with a 246-195 career record (16-11 on the year) and could notch win No. 250 by reaching the quarter-finals.

[19] Alex de Minaur (AUS) vs. Hugo Gaston (FRA)

A first-time matchup of young guns pits the 23-year-old Alex de Minaur against the 21-year-old Hugo Gaston. The Aussie has enjoyed a strong start to 2022, his 19-10 record (prior to Lyon) including runs to the Australian Open last 16 and the Barcelona semi-finals, where he held a match point against eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz. 

De Minaur has not lost in the first round in five clay events on the European swing, and could enter Paris on the heels of his first ATP Tour title of the season. He will face Alex Molcan in the Lyon semi-finals on Friday.

Gaston reached the Roland Garros last 16 in 2020, beating Stan Wawrinka and taking Dominic Thiem to five sets in his main-draw debut at his home Slam. The Frenchman’s best result of 2022 came in Miami, where he notched two victories — including a straight-sets win over John Isner — to reach the last 32 at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

Top 12 Group have partnered with ATP and IMG to launch an exciting new series of team competition as part of the ATP Champions Tour. The Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour will pit two teams of tennis legends against each other across three action-packed, competitive three-day tournaments, with the first event set to take place in Pula-Istria, Croatia from 1-3 August.

Eight-time Grand Slam winner Ivan Lendl and Wimbledon Champion Pat Cash have been appointed as captains of the two five-player teams that will face off at the three tournaments hosted in exclusive destinations across the world.

Lendl and Cash have already made spectators dream and move countless times and this tournament will be the ultimate fight between these two legendary athletes. Alongside the non-playing captains, the first players to be announced for the series are two-time doubles Grand Slam champion Radek Stepanek, former World No. 2 Tommy Haas, and former World No. 4 Tomas Berdych.

The Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour will announce the additional seven superstar players, all ranked in the Top 20 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, over the coming weeks. A team draft is set to take place during the UK’s famous grass-court season, at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic’s ATP Champions Tour event at London’s Hurlingham Club. There, team captains Lendl and Cash will draft the full lineup of players into their respective teams, which they will go on to represent for the season.

For the first time in the tennis world, The Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour will be played in spectacular venues at exclusive destinations for this one-of-a-kind series of events. The first location is Pula- Istria, Croatia, at the breathtaking Amphitheater, the second and grand finale sites will be revealed in the weeks leading up to the first event.

Each tournament day will consist of two singles and one doubles match, with the team with the most points at the end of the three days being crowned the winners. The teams will also play to become the series champions, which will be awarded at the end of the third tournament in November.

Zeljko Franulovic, the Tournament Director for the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters for the past 17 years, will serve as Tournament Director for Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour from 1st July.

Marten Hedlund, President and CEO of Top 12 Group and Founder of the Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour, said: “Legends Team Cup – ATP Champions Tour is an opportunity for the players who still have the hunger and the drive to keep playing at the very top of their game. Our aim is to create a new exciting series of competition, by attracting players and audience that are truly passionate about tennis. Iconic players playing in spectacular iconic venues is a thrilling concept”.

Ross Hutchins, ATP Chief Tour Officer, said: “The ATP Champions Tour plays an important role in celebrating our sport’s greatest icons at events all around the world. We’re delighted to welcome the Legends Team Cup onto the calendar this season and for fans to experience Champions Tour tennis in an exciting new format.”

Nikhil Waugh, Tennis Event Director at IMG, the company that operates the ATP Champions Tour, added: “The Legends Team Cup and its unique team format with Ivan Lendl and Pat Cash, two greats of the game, as captains promises to inject the ATP Champions Tour with renewed life and we are excited to work together to develop this series. The standard of tennis and competitive drive of the players on the Legends Team Cup will be a great asset and we can’t wait to see the action unfold.”

Roland Garros top seed Novak Djokovic will have his work cut out for him as he seeks to defend his title in Paris. The World No. 1 could face Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals, with the 13-time champion drawn into his quarter as the fifth seed.

Carlos Alcaraz also joins them in the top half as the sixth seed, and could face Djokovic or Nadal in the semi-finals. Alcaraz, who will be making his second appearance at the clay-court Grand Slam, was placed in third seed Alexander Zverev’s quarter.

View Draw

Daniil Medvedev anchors the draw on its bottom line, with fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third quarter alongside eighth seed Casper Ruud. Andrey Rublev, seeded seventh, is a potential quarter-final opponent for Medvedev.

Speaking at the draw ceremony, Djokovic expressed his gratitude for the full return of fans at the Stade Roland Garros.

“It’s amazing to see the amount of people that came this week during the qualifying week and also at the practice sessions,” he said. “A lot of people on the centre court and on Court Suzanne Leglen as well. It’s fantastic to see that because you can see how much they miss tennis, how much they are passionate and how much they love this sport. And of course for us players, it’s an incredible feeling to have the crowd.

“Particularly for me at this stage of my career, they are one of the main factors of why I still play professional tennis and why I compete. The energy that you get from the crowd, the excitement is something very important for us.”

Djokovic will open play against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka and could face Diego Schwartzman or Grigor Dimitrov in the fourth round. 

Nadal’s first-round opponent is Aussie Jordan Thompson, with Stan Wawrinka looming as a potential second-round opponent. Ninth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime and 17th seed Reilly Opelka are potential fourth-round matchups for the Spaniard. 

Both Alcaraz and Zverev open against qualifiers, with the unseeded Dominic Thiem a dangerous floater in that second quarter. Thiem faces Hugo Dellien in the first round, with the winner to face 21st seed Karen Khachanov or a qualifier in the second round.

The third quarter features three of the draw’s more intriguing opening-round matchups. Tsitsipas will take on #NextGenATP Italian Lorenzo Musetti, 14th seed Denis Shapovalov faces #NextGenATP Dane Holger Rune and Ruud takes on wild card Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, with the Frenchman set to retire following Roland Garros.

Medvedev will seek his first clay win of the season against Facundo Bagnis in the opening round, while Rublev opens against Soonwoo Kwon. Also in the fourth quarter, 11th seed Jannik Sinner will face a qualfiier in the opening round, while 16th seed Pablo Carreno Busta faces home favourite Gilles Simon in the Frenchman’s final Roland Garros before his planned retirement at the end of the year. 

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Nadal was a 12-time Roland Garros champion. He has won the title 13 times.

Casper Ruud maintained his quest for a second ATP Tour title of the season Thursday, overcoming Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-4, 7-6(3) to reach the semi-finals at the Gonet Geneva Open.

The Norwegian lifted the trophy at the ATP 250 event last year and has looked comfortable on the Swiss clay again this week, backing up his opening-round win over Benoit Paire with a strong performance against Kokkinakis.

The second seed showcased great athleticism and pulled the 26-year-old around with his aggressive hitting to advance after one hour and 44 minutes and move to 1-0 in their ATP Head2Head series.

“It was difficult from the first to the last point,” Ruud said. “Thanasi is a player with big weapons, dangerous shots and he has been playing well this year. It is fun to see him back, I have known he has been struggling with injuries. It was the first time playing against him, so everything was new. I was able to break him at the end of the first set and play some good points in the tie-break and that sealed the match.”

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Ruud captured the sixth clay-court title of his career in Buenos Aires in February, before he enjoyed a run to the last four in Rome last week.

The 23-year-old will meet Reilly Opelka in the semi-finals after the American edged Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in one hour and 35 minutes.

“I expect it to be tough,” Ruud said looking ahead to his match against Opelka. “Reilly with the serve and the altitude, it is tough to return his serve. But I will do my best and see how I can do. I always enjoy playing against Reilly. He is a similar age to myself and it will be another battle against him and hopefully it will be a good one.”

The fourth seed, who has clinched crowns in Dallas and Houston in 2022, fired 14 aces and won 85 per cent (40/47) of his first-serve points to advance to his fifth semi-final of the season, surpassing the four semi-finals he reached last year.

Frenchman Richard Gasquet backed up his standout win over World No. 2 Daniil Medvedev by overcoming Pole Kamil Majchrzak 6-2, 6-4 in 89 minutes. The 35-year-old is now into his first tour-level semi-final since last July, when he lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the Umag final.

#NextGenATP Italian Giulio Zeppieri will make his main-draw debut at Roland Garros after overcoming Frenchman Sean Cuenin 6-3, 6-4 in the third qualifying round on Thursday.

The 20-year-old, currently at a career-high No. 215 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, did not drop a set during qualifying. It is the first time Zeppieri has qualified for a Grand Slam.

Bernabe Zapata Miralles booked his spot in the main draw for the second consecutive year, rallying past #NextGenATP Italian Luca Nardi 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the final qualifying round. The Spaniard recovered from a slow start against Nardi, who is 10th in the Pepperstone ATP Race To Milan, to advance after one hour and 59 minutes.

Portugal’s Nuno Borges will make his Roland Garros debut after he eliminated Hungarian Zsombor Piros 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 in one hour and 45 minutes. The World No. 126 is now 25-9 across all levels this season.

In his fifth qualifying attempt, Czech Zdenek Kolar finally reached the main draw in Paris with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Italian Franco Agamenone, while Australian Jason Kubler defeated Portugal’s Pedro Sousa 7-5, 6-2.

Austrian Sebastian Ofner, who lifted an ATP Challenger Tour title in Prague in April, moved past Italian Alessandro Giannessi 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 and Borna Gojo downed Argentine Juan Ignacio Londero 7-6(1), 6-1. Gojo lost in qualifying at all four Grand Slams in 2021, but produced a dominant performance to ensure he did not suffer more heartbreak.

Argentine Santiago Fa Rodriguez Taverna will make his Grand Slam debut after edging Dimitar Kuzmanov 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Alex Molcan continued his perfect week at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon Thursday, dispatching Argentine Federico Coria 6-3, 6-2 to reach his second tour-level semi-final of the season.

The Slovakian has yet to drop a set in the south of France and he overpowered Coria with his brutal ball-striking to advance after 90 minutes. With his run, he has climbed to No. 41 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

Molcan, who defeated former World No. 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and fifth seed Karen Khachanov in his opening two matches, enjoyed a run to the final on clay in Marrakech in April. The 24-year-old earned just seven tour-level wins in 2021, but has already recorded 13 victories in 2022.

The lefty will next face Alex de Minaur after Japan’s Yosuke Watanuki was forced to retire from their match due to a back problem at the start of the second set.

The Australian was leading 6-4 after 39 minutes when Watanuki retired due to injury. It is the second time de Minaur has advanced to the last four this year, having reached the semi-finals in Barcelona in April.

“It is a tough one. It was very tough, a lot of wind. Tough conditions,” de Minaur said. “I was happy I kept my cool and did what I needed to do and [I am] wishing a very speedy recovery to Yosuke, who I know very well from juniors.

“It will be another tough one [against Molcan]. He has been having his best year and I am ready for a battle tomorrow.”

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In other action, French qualifier Manuel Guinard moved past American lucky loser Michael Mmoh 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in three hours and 19 minutes to reach his first tour-level quarter-final. The match resumed on Thursday at 5-5 in the third set and it was Ginard who came out firing to move to 1-0 in their ATP Head2Head series.

The 26-year-old will return to court later to face #NextGenATP Dane Holger Rune.

Ilya Ivashka won a pair of three-setters to advance to the quarter-finals at the Gonet Geneva Open, including an upset of third seed Denis Shapovalov on Wednesday. It’s the 28-year-old’s second quarter-final showing of the season, after he reached the same stage in Marseille in February.

Before he takes on Portugal’s Joao Sousa on Thursday, get to know more about Ivashka in ATPTour.com’s newest ‘Last Time’ Q&A, adapted from a conversation at Indian Wells in March.

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When was the last time you missed a flight?
I missed one time a flight, maybe five or six years ago. I came to a different terminal. It was the same destination city but a different airline. It was in Seoul. 

It was a completely different part of the airport. I came for boarding, last person, and they told me ‘No, wrong airline.’

When was the last time you lost something important? 
A few days ago I lost my wallet at Chipotle. It was there for two days. Suddenly I realised that I don’t have the wallet after two days. Then my wife called there, and it was still in Chipotle. So I was pretty lucky.

What is your typical Chipotle order?
Always the same. One bowl with a tortilla and everything that they have. I love Chipotle.

When was the last time being a famous tennis player helped you in everyday life?
Never happened. I’m not VIP (smiles). It never worked out like this.

When was the last time you strung your own tennis racquet?
Never.

When was the last time you cooked a meal for yourself?
Not lately. Sometimes I can do a breakfast. I can cook a little bit, but nothing special. Just basic things.

When was the last time you met a childhood idol?
Maybe Andy Murray. I always liked the way he played a lot, and in February we were practising in Rotterdam. I even posted a photo. I have one photo when I was 12 and he was 20, or something like that… and one now.