Clay-court performance ratings are encouraging signs for Djokovic, Sinner and Alcaraz

Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have underwhelmed throughout the current clay-court swing, but heading into Roland-Garros the numbers tell a bit of a different story.

March 16, 2024 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain shakes hands with Jannik Sinner of Italy after winning the Semifinal match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA. || 287209_0003 Indian PRESS tennis zagency zcsm zlast24 zselect zsports ZTENNIS Zuma ZUMAPRESS.com zwire

Ricky Dimon

May 26, 2024

Given the recent struggles of Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, the Roland-Garros men’s singles titles seems to be entirely up for grabs — at least to a greater extent than it ever has been since Rafael Nadal’s reign began back in 2005.

Djokovic has not reached a single final in 2024 and is coming off an alarming loss to Tomas Machac in the Geneva semi-finals — during which he struggled physically. Sinner has played just two-clay tournaments due to a hip problem and lost prior to the final in both Indian Wells and Madrid. Alcaraz’s clay-court preparation for the French Open included only the Madrid Masters, where he fell to eventual Andrey Rublev in the quarters while hampered by a right-arm injury.

Despite those results, performance ratings calculated by Tennis Data Innovations suggest that Djokovic, Sinner and Alcaraz have actually been playing pretty well on clay.

The sample size is small, so perhaps the entire story of the clay-court swing isn’t being told — but at the same time the numbers don’t line. Sinner is No 1 in overall performance rating, Djokovic is second and Alcaraz is eighth. Sinner leads the way with both his forehand and backhand, while Djokovic is second in the backhand department and Alcaraz finds himself in the top four in terms of his quality with both the backhand and the return of serve.

DJOKOVIC, ZVEREV HAVE PLAYED THE BEST MATCHES ON CLAY

Somewhat surprisingly, Djokovic — per the performance rating calculations — has actually played the best all-around match of this entire clay-court season. That came against Roman Safiullin in the Monte-Carlo second round (the top-ranked Serb won 6-1, 6-2).

Alexander Zverev, who captured the Rome title, is the only man to feature twice in the top-five performances. The fourth-ranked German’s efforts in the Rome final and the Monte-Carlo quarter are on the list.

1. Novak Djokovic (9.47) vs Roman Safiullin – Monte-Carlo R2

2. Andrey Rublev (9.22) vs Tallon Griekspoor – Madrid R4

3. Alexander Zverev (9.18) vs Nicolas Jarry – Rome F

4. Stefanos Tsitsipas (9.05) vs Tomas Martin Etcheverry – Monte-Carlo R2

5. Alexander Zverev (9.01) vs Taylor Fritz – Monte-Carlo QF

Despite having to face Rafael Nadal in the first round, a red-hot Zverev is obviously among the favorites to capture the Roland-Garros title. In fact, Djokovic, Alcaraz, Sinner and Zverev are arguably the top four favorites. Of course, for three of them it all depends on health.