Maybe it’s fitting that one of the great rivalries in modern sport may end in the tennis netherworld of the Olympics.
Or maybe it’s ironic that on a random Monday afternoon, in an early round of a tournament that some of the best players in the world always find skippable, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will battle for oxygen in Paris with swimming races and cycling races, with fencing duels, equestrian competitions, volleyball matches, and so much more.
Two of the greatest players ever to pick up a racket, with a combined 46 Grand Slam singles titles, will meet for a 60th time on Monday afternoon in the second round of the Olympic tournament. They will play on Court Philippe-Chatrier, the court that Nadal has long ruled, but on which Djokovic claimed bragging rights as the greatest player ever when he won his third French Open title and his 23rd overall last year.
It is also the court that landed Djokovic in the operating room in early June, after he suffered a meniscus tear in his right knee and had to withdraw from the French Open. He will surely be going up against not just Nadal, but a hostile crowd in a place and a country where his rival is a folk hero, one of the last people to touch the Olympic torch before the Olympic flame rose over the city Friday night.
Everything about this match has a layer of weirdness to it.
GO FURTHER
Rafael Nadal sets up Olympic tennis clash with old rival Novak Djokovic in Paris
