Where can Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal meet at the Paris Olympics
The Paris Olympics is going to start on Friday, July 26 with the action in tennis beginning on Saturday. It will be played on the red clay of Roland Garros which is also the venue for the French Open every year
38-year-old Rafael Nadal and 37-year-old Novak Djokovic who have won 22 and 24 Grand Slams, respectively, will take part in what will surely be their last Olympics.
Nadal won the Olympic singles gold medal at the Beijing Games in 2008 but a gold at the Olympics has eluded Djokovic so far. It remains to be seen whether the Serb can make amends in Paris this year.
Where will Djokovic and Nadal meet?
The draw for tennis at the Olympics is out and Djokovic will face Matthew Ebden of Australia in the first round.
The 36-year-old Ebden has been a former World No. 1 in doubles but hardly plays singles these days. He reached a career-high ranking of World No. 39 in singles in 2018.
Meanwhile, Nadal will face Marton Fucsovics of Hungary in the first round. The 32-year-old Hungarian is ranked 83rd in the world at the moment and reached a career-high ranking of World No. 31 in 2019.
Should both Djokovic and Nadal go on to win their first-round matches - which they should - they will come up against each other in the second round. It will then be a high-voltage clash between the two champions on the red clay of Paris yet again.
The two greats have collided at Roland Garros repeatedly
The two greats have come across each other repeatedly at the French Open with Nadal, a peerless player on clay, dominating the match-ups. They have met each other on 10 occasions at Roland Garros with Nadal prevailing in eight of those matches.
However, the Serb remains the only player to have defeated the Spaniard twice at Roland Garros, most notably in the epic 2021 semifinal when one of the sets in the match went on for a whopping 98 minutes.
Should the two meet again in the second round of the Olympics, it will be a treat for tennis-lovers all over the world. They might not face each other ever again on a tennis court after the Olympics with Nadal already battling injuries and seemingly on the verge of retirement.
Djokovic leads their head-to-head 30-29 at the moment and a lot of people will be waiting for their 60th clash to happen in Paris.