{"id":662515,"date":"2026-05-24T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662515\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:52:10","slug":"day-1-under-the-lights-novak-returns-roland-garros-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662515\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 1 Under the lights: Novak returns &#8211; Roland-Garros 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He has a huge hurdle to overcome on Sunday night in the shape of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/players\/44112-g.mpetshi-perricard\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard<\/a>, all 6ft 7ins (201cms) of him. The world No.80 and France\u2019s No.8 is a big man with a huge serve and a walloping forehand \u2013 that will test Novak\u2019s poorly shoulder all right. Yet Mpetshi Perricard has had injury issues of his own to deal with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLately I had problems,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wrist was in a bit of a problematic shape for a month on clay, but now I&#8217;m better, and I&#8217;m ready. 100 per cent ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He knows he will have to be ready: no one takes Djokovic, even a struggling Djokovic, lightly. \u201cIt&#8217;s quite impressive when you have such a major name as an opponent,\u201d the Frenchman said enthusiastically. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo matter what happens at the end of the match, it&#8217;s going to bring a lot to my game. So I&#8217;m very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has a huge hurdle to overcome on Sunday night in the shape of Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-662515","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\/662515","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=662515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}