French Open 2024: Rafael Nadal vs Alexander Zverev head-to-head, predictions, live stream

Nadal has a career advantage over Zverev, but can he get the better of the current Italian Open champ?

Rafael Nadal has the toughest Round 1 draw, playing Italian Open champ Alexander Zverev

Round 1 of the Men’s singles draw of the 2024 French Open kicks off in Roland Garros on May 26. 14-time champ and King of Clay, Rafael Nadal is on his farewell season and hoping to bow out in style with a 15thtitle. It won’t be easy, though. As if the fact that he’s not played much tennis in the last year-and-a-half, owing to an injury and subsequent recovery time, was not bad enough, he’s got a tough Round 1 draw. Nadal will play Alexander Zverev, who only days ago won the Italian Open.

French Open 2024: Meet the top seeds in the men’s singles at Roland Garros

Advantage Nadal?

Nadal and Zverev have played each other 10 times earlier, with the Spaniard winning 7 of those encounters. But this time’s different. Nadal’s not at his A-game; he’s still hitting hard, but is not moving across court as fast as he used to and is more conscious about not putting his body through more injury. Zverev, therefore, will be the favourite to win this encounter. But then, Roland Garros is one tournament in which Nadal’s a different kind of beast. He may just come up with the biggest upset of the tournament this weekend, when his Round 1 match is set.

French Open 2024 – When and where to watch clay court grand slam tournament; provisional schedule of matches

The broadcast partner of the French Open in India is Sony Sports with live streaming on Sony LIV. It remains to be seen if the telecast partner will make all matches available or only a selected few every day.

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Meanwhile, defending champion Novak Djokovic’s first match at the French Open is against French wild card entrant Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Other notable 1st round matches include Tommy Paul vs Pedro Cachin, Taylor Fritz vs Federico Coria, two-time French Open runner up Casper Ruud vs Jakub Mensik, India’s Sumit Nagal vs Karen Khachanov, Holger Rune vs Daniel Evans, Daniil Medvedev vs Dominik Koepfer, Alex De Minaur vs Alex Michelsen, Andrey Rublev vs Taro Daniel, Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Marton Fucsovics, Carloz Alcaraz vs Qaulfie/Lucky Loser, Hubert Hurkacz vs Qaulfie/Lucky Loser, Aljandro Tabilo vs Qaulfie/Lucky Loser, Nicolas Jarry vs Corentin Moutet, Andy Murray vs Stan Wawrinka and Jannik Sinner vs Christopher Eubanks.

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