Novak Djokovic's unexpected injury at the Australian Open put an end to his plans to chase a 25th Grand Slam title in Melbourne. Next, it is inevitable to turn to Roland Garros.
However, if Djokovic's muscle injury requires eight weeks of recovery time, the hard-court season in February-March will essentially be reimbursed.
Purely from the perspective of preparing for the French Open, time will definitely be in time. But what will Djokovic's ranking be at that time? There is no doubt that this will have a direct impact on Djokovic's place in the French Open draw.
Currently, Djokovic is in sixth place. If they can retain their top-eight rankings before the French Open, at least the first four rounds of the French Open will not be too hard. But it is also possible to have a remake of the Australian Open draw: from the quarterfinals to the TOP3.
If Novak Djokovic is unable to compete due to injury and falls out of the top eight, he may face a top 4 player in the fourth round.
Therefore, in order to be more conducive to the French Open title, Djokovic must play as many tournaments as possible and try to improve his rankings.
There are two ATP 500 events this week, the Rotterdam 500 in the Netherlands and the Dallas 500 in the United States. Among the top 10 players, except for Sinner, Zverev and Djokovic, the other players have started work.
Alcaraz, Medvedev, De Minaur and Rublev competed in Rotterdam and Fritz, Ruud and Paul competed in Dallas.
WeekIf Medvedev or De Minaur win or reach the final in Rotterdam, they will overtake Djokovic in the rankings.
Of course, if Paul and Rublev play well in their own games, it will also further close the gap with Djokovic.
Among the players ranked 11-15 in the ATP, except for Dimitrov and Draper, who were injured at the Australian Open like Djokovic and are still recuperating, the other players have also started work.
So, Tsitsipas, Rune, Shelton, Djokovic is expected to be out of action for eight weeks, have a chance to add points and close to or surpass Djokovic's ranking points.
The above situation is very bad for Djokovic.
Here's a look at how much room Djokovic has left to drop ahead of the clay season:
In addition to the Grand Slam tournaments in the 2024 season, Djokovic has only played four Masters tournaments and one 250 tournament in Geneva. As a result, only 50 points from the Indian Wells Masters are needed until the clay season. In other words, even if Djokovic rests until after the North American Sunshine doubles, he still has 3,850 points. It's only 50 points less than the current 3,900 points.
Of course, if Djokovic recovers from injury quickly, perhaps the Doha or Dubai races in February will still be possible. As for the Sunshine Doubles, it depends on the rankings.
Theoretically, as long as you keep the points in each event, the ranking won't change much. In the same way, if you want to improve your ranking, you need to earn more points on top of your points. Especially in the top 10 sequence, unless you win a major tournament, or at least make a deep round, you will have a chance to move up the rankings. On top of that, you can only hope that the players ahead of you will "mess up" in the tournament.
For example, just like the just-concluded 2025 Australian Open, Rublev and Medvedev were both upset and exited early, Rublev fell one place in the rankings, and Medvedev fell two places. Paul reached the quarterfinals and moved up three places to ninth, making it to the top 10 for the first time.
Novak Djokovic suffered a meniscus injury at the French Open last year, and after only four weeks of recovery from surgery, he played Wimbledon and reached the final. Does this Australian Open injury really take eight weeks to recover? The Doha tournament starts on 17 February. The Dubai race began on February 24, exactly one month after Djokovic's injury.
So, I'm looking forward to Djokovic's early recovery.
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