Novak Djokovic suffered a shock second round defeat to Dino Prizmic at the Italian Open, leaving his preparations for Roland Garros in tatters.<\/p>\n
The Serbian had not played for two months prior to his Italian Open defeat at Indian Wells, losing in the third round to Jack Draper.<\/p>\n
The 24-time Grand Slam champion has now confirmed that he will not play another clay court event until Roland Garros, despite his early defeat in Rome.<\/p>\n
Djokovic<\/a> played, and won, the ATP 250 event, the Geneva Open last year, which takes place the week prior to Roland Garros<\/a>, but that will not be the case this year.<\/p>\n Asked in his Italian Open<\/a> press conference if fans would be able to see him play ahead of the Paris event, Djokovic replied: \u201cNo. This year, no. I\u2019ll just go to Paris straight. It\u2019s the decision. It\u2019s the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic has previously criticised the ATP Tour schedule<\/a>, so it should not be a surprise that he\u2019s playing a limited calendar, but it has shocked some pundits.<\/p>\n That is a decision that has left former professional Tracy Austin shocked, and she shared her thoughts on the matter during an appearance on The Tennis Channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was kind of surprised. He clearly knows what\u2019s best for him. I mean we\u2019re never going to doubt what Novak has to think. But I was surprised that he made such a definitive answer so quickly after losing a match like this because we know that last year he went there, he won the title,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe hasn\u2019t played [much]. What he he played, like 10-12 matches this year? Third tournament overall. And I would feel like going into a major, three out of five sets, and you haven\u2019t played since Indian Wells [I think] he\u2019d want at least a few matches.<\/p>\n \u201cThat kind of surprised me. There must be a reason why. Maybe he\u2019s not feeling good physically elsewhere. I just don\u2019t know. That surprised me.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic defeated Marton Fucsovics, Matteo Arnaldi, Cameron Norrie, and Hubert Hurkacz<\/a> to win the title in Geneva last season, which was the Serbian\u2019s 100th ATP title of his career.<\/p>\n Matches played by Novak Djokovic in 2026<\/p>\n Pedro Martinez \u2013 W The star used the tournament as a warm-up for Roland Garros, which saw him reach the semi-finals of the clay court Grand Slam.<\/p>\n Djokovic was beaten in straight sets by Jannik Sinner<\/a> at last year\u2019s Roland Garros, and he will be hoping to go two steps further this season with little preparation.<\/p>\n Of course, the Serbian has been here before.<\/p>\n Djokovic didn\u2019t play a warm-up event for this year\u2019s Australian Open<\/a>, which saw him produce a remarkable run to the final. That included a victory against Sinner in the semi-finals, before his campaign was ended by Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tennis icon will be hoping history repeats itself as he looks to claim the 25th major title of his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic suffered a shock second round defeat to Dino Prizmic at the Italian Open, leaving his preparations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-634637","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\/634637","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=634637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrancesco Maestrelli \u2013 W
\nBotic van de Zandschulp \u2013 W
\nJakub Mensik \u2013 W
\nLorenzo Musetti \u2013 W
\nJannik Sinner \u2013 W
\nCarlos Alcaraz \u2013 L
\nKamil Majchrzak \u2013 W
\nAleksandar Kovacevic \u2013 W
\nJack Draper \u2013 L
\nDino Prizmic \u2013 L<\/p>\n