Roland Garros: Djokovic has another date with history and Rudd wants to spoil it for him

On Sunday afternoon (November 6, 4 p.m., Eurosport 1, live on Sportish) Novak Djokovic meets Casper Rudd in the Roland Garros final.

On the one hand, the 36-year-old Serb is looking for another jewel in his crown, while on the other, the 24-year-old Norwegian is looking for the first major title of his career since winning ten in his possession, all of which are in the 250cc format.

Sportish analyzes all the data from the grand final, which should catch the attention of all tennis fans.

Another date with history for Djokovic

Nole has many different challenges ahead of him, which give him extra motivation to achieve victory against Casper Rude.

Of course, Novak Djokovic’s title win will put him at the top of the Grand Slam champions list at 23, leaving Rafael Nadal in second place at 22.

At the same time, he will be the only one to have at least three wins in the four Grand Slams! Last but not least, an impressive performance for Nole.

Simultaneously with his qualification for the final, Djokovic reached 34 points in his great career, equaling the record of the legendary Chris Evert.

He was also the only man in tennis history to have a win rate of at least 85% in all Grand Slams. Specifically, he now has 91.8% at the Australian Open, 89.6% at Wimbledon, 86.2% at the US Open and 85.0% at Roland Garros.

Rude strives for the impossible

Casper Rudd is taking part in the Roland Garros final for the second year in a row while this is his third Grand Slam final.

Last year he was stopped by Rafael Nadal in Paris and lost to Carlos Alcarath at the following US Open. Now he will face Novak Djokovic who wants the win to make history again.

As you can easily see, his mission seems impossible since we all know that Nole almost never fails on such missions.

However, Kasper Ruud has already put on a tremendous run, overcoming athletes with big obstacles like those of Rooney and Zverev.

In fact, he has already made a name for himself in Nordic tennis after being included in several shortlists. After Borg, Wilander and Edberg, he was only the fourth to reach at least three finals.

your previous encounters

This will be the fifth meeting between the two athletes, with Djokovic scoring an absolute 4-0 so far. In fact, Rude hasn’t won a set in their last three encounters.

Their first meeting took place in 2020 at the Rome Masters, where Nole prevailed 2-0 (7-5, 6-3) in the semi-finals and qualified.

The two met a year later in the group stage of the ATP Finals, with the Serb prevailing 7-6 (4), 6-2. This was also the only tiebreaker they played.

Their next two games were in 2022. Impressively, they played again at the Rome Masters and the ATP Finals. In Rome, they met again in the semifinals and played in the final of the ATP Finals.

This is how they reached the final

Novak Djokovic started his run against Kovacevic and went through the first four rounds without dropping a set, successively eliminating Fucsovic, Davidovic Fokina and Variyas.

In the quarterfinals, Khachanov won the first set, but then Nole completely controlled the game and caused the upset, while in the semifinals, Djokovic prevailed 3-1 against Alkarath.

On the other hand, Kasper Ruud overcame Imer’s obstacle without losing a set. Then it was 3-1 by Zepieri and Zhang and then 3-0 by Harry to reach the Quarterfinals.

In the round of 16, he won a 3-1 set against Holger Rune while in the semifinals he made the confrontation with Zverev a feat for a role.

The figures of the two gladiators

Let’s take a look at these six games that each of the two played from a statistical perspective. The impressive thing is that nobody has played a fifth set yet.

Both have lost few sets overall (two for the Serb and three for the Norwegian), while generally boasting impressive service ratios at 84% and 87% respectively.

Djokovic and Rudd have almost the same number of break points, with Nole at a slightly better rate than the Norwegian.

Finally, we should mention something else: the almost two hours that Djokovic spent longer on the court can do his part.

The data in the world rankings

Novak Djokovic is the only one dying for the result of the final as his win will have implications for his position in the world rankings.

If Nole wins, he will return to the top of the world rankings. In particular, he will reach 7595 points, overtaking Carlos Alcarath who stayed at 7175. Thus, after a month’s absence from the top, Djokovic will return there.

At the same time, whatever happens in the final, Casper Rudd will be fourth in the world rankings. What will change is his difference with fifth Stefanos Tsitsipas and third Danil Medvedev.

If the Norwegian loses, he stays at 4960 points, in case of victory he reaches 5760. Currently, Tsitsipas has 4920, while the Russian has 6100.

The prize money of the final

Finally, we leave the crazy financials of the finals as both the winner and loser will leave Paris with a seven-figure sum.

The winner gets 2.3 million euros while the loser gets 1.15 million euros. We remind you that a total of 49.6 million euros.