French Open 2023 Men's Final: Early Predictions for Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon
Novak Djokovic will head to Wimbledon as the all-time leader in men's Grand Slam titles.
The 23-time major champion captured the 2023 French Open title, the third of his career at Roland Garros, with a straight-set win over Casper Ruud.
Djokovic eliminated his two biggest challengers, Ruud and Carlos Alcaraz, to win the title in Paris and now he gets the chance to extend his major-tournament reign on a surface he dominated in the last five years.
The 36-year-old Serbian should be viewed as the favorite to win at the All England Lawn, Tennis and Croquet Club. He won the last four Wimbledon titles. The run began in 2018 and was only slowed by the 2020 cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alcaraz, Ruud and a slew of other top men's players will try to dethrone Djokovic, but the challenge will be even tougher than it was on the Roland Garros clay.
Novak Djokovic Looking for 5th Wimbledon Title in a Row
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No one has beaten Djokovic on the grass courts in London since 2017.
He retired in the quarterfinals of the 2017 event, so his last true loss on the grass came to Sam Querrey in the 2016 third round.
Djokovic is the four-time reigning Wimbledon champion. He has seven total titles at the season's third major.
Additionally, Djokovic has not lost a single match at a major tournament in 2023. He swept the Australian and French Opens.
Djokovic was not viewed as the favorite to win in Paris because he had two titles on the clay before Sunday.
The 23-time major champion should be favored on the grass, a surface that has only seen four different winners since 2003. Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray are the only men's singles champions in that span.
Djokovic is the only one of the four who will be playing in the 2023 edition of Wimbledon with a significant chance to win. Murray is the only other member of the quartet who could play. Nadal is out injured and Federer is retired.
That means all of the serious challengers to Djokovic's reign have not had previous success at Wimbledon, and some of them have not even won a major title before.
Top Challengers
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Alcaraz is the natural answer to the question of who will be Djokovic's biggest challenger at Wimbledon.
However, the No. 1 seed at the French Open has not made it past the fourth round at the grass-court major. He performed much better on the clay and hard courts.
Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Holger Rune, all of whom were top 10 seeds at the French Open, suffered exits in the first week of Wimbledon last year.
Nick Kyrgios and Matteo Berrettini, the last two runners-up at Wimbledon to Djokovic, have dealt with injuries for good portions of the 2023 season.
Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev could test Djokovic, but both Russian-born players failed to make it out of the fourth round in their last appearances in 2021. Wimbledon banned Russian players from competing in 2022 due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Cameron Norrie, who lost to Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals last year, could make a deep run in front of his home crowd.
Taylor Fritz and Jannik Sinner were the other two seeded players, along with Djokovic and Norrie, to qualify for the final eight in London last year.
None of the top players have fantastic track records on the grass, which makes the conversation about who will actually challenge Djokovic a wide-open debate going into the tournament.
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