Eurosport France<\/a>, Clement said: \u201cHe\u2019s already experienced this kind of situation. He has such a comfortable lead that he often has time to find his rhythm in the early rounds. I don\u2019t think it will be a problem for him. Normally, it is for everyone; it will depend on who he faces in the first round.<\/p>\n\u201cHe continues to play to try and win one last Grand Slam. After that, he needs to be competitive right away by winning matches, because he hasn\u2019t played one for a long time. \u201c[It is] important for him to quickly find his rhythm in Rome. It\u2019s not impossible that he might want to play the week before Roland-Garros, depending on his result in Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clement even believes that Djokovic could even have an advantage over Sinner at Roland Garros, despite the Italian\u2019s current imperious form.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can physically last longer than Sinner on clay at his age,\u201d said the Frenchman, although he still believes he will need to play him in the final in order to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have to see which section of the draw he\u2019s in, the path he takes, the players he has to beat. The road is longer for Djokovic than for Sinner in that respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic defeated Sinner in their most recent match on the ATP Tour, as he overcame the Italian in five sets to knock him out of the Australian Open semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner\u2019s last five meetings\u00a0<\/p>\n
2026 Australian Open \u2013 Novak Djokovic
\n2025 Wimbledon \u2013 Jannik Sinner
\n2025 Roland Garros \u2013 Jannik Sinner
\n2024 Shanghai Masters \u2013 Jannik Sinner
\n2024 Australian Open \u2013 Jannik Sinner<\/p>\n
Sinner\u2019s recent record, however, is very good against the Serbian. He has won five of his last six matches against Djokovic, which includes three Grand Slam victories.<\/p>\n
The Italian leads his head-to-head with Djokovic with six victories from their 11 meetings, dating back to their very first at the Monte Carlo Masters in 2021.<\/p>\n
Their next potential meeting could come as early as the Italian Open, although Djokovic would have to reach his first Masters final since the 2025 Miami Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic is set to return to tennis for the first time in two months at the Italian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-628691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}