French Open Analysis: Night match hands advantage to Djokovic over Nadal

Sean Calvert
30 May 2022

Sean thinks Djokovic has the edge over Nadal currently

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The first of the men's quarter finals are set at the 2022 French Open and Sean Calvert is back to analyse Tuesday's big matches in Paris...

"Seasoned Nadal-watchers will have noticed that night sessions don’t do Rafa’s game any favours, with the chillier air and moisture adversely affecting his heavily spun forehand..."

The top half of the men's singles draw at the 2022 French Open has played out exactly as seeded, which is no great surprise, and it means that we will have a Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal quarter final.

This will be the 59th time that this pair have clashed in their illustrious careers in a series that's currently led 30-28 by Djokovic.

It's 18-8 to Nadal on clay though and looking at the stats of the series as a whole on clay we find that there's very little in it, with the main difference being Nadal's superior performance on break points.

Both players have created pretty much the same number of break chances per service game (0.66 for Nadal and 0.65 for Djokovic), but Nadal has taken far more of his opportunities: 50% compared to only 38% for Djokovic.

And it's virtually the same in the shorter-term data of the last 10 clay clashes, with Nadal creating 0.67 break chances per game and Djokovic creating 0.66 per game, but again Nadal has taken 45% of those chances compared to just 36% for Djokovic.

Nadal's better performance on those break chances is a big factor in the Spaniard edging the overall numbers, where Nadal has won more points on serve (61% to 57.8%) and on return (42% compared to 39%) and held serve more often (75% compared to 67%).

Rafael Nadal RG 2022.jpg

So, that stats would suggest an edge to Nadal, but current form has trumped all of that in the minds of the layers when they've priced this one up.

Djokovic's superb run of form over the last few weeks where he's won nine straight matches without dropping a set has led to the Serb being priced up as a 1.501/2 chance to progress to the semi finals and it's hard to argue with that on form.

Djokovic has barely broken sweat through Rome and now in the first week of the French, while Nadal hobbled out of Rome and went five sets against Felix Auger-Aliassime in a really unconvincing performance on Sunday.

What struck me in that FAA match was how timid Nadal was for long spells of that match, as if were lacking confidence, and maybe that stems from him not having full faith in that ongoing foot problem or perhaps it was affecting him somewhat.

What struck me in that FAA match was how timid Nadal was for long spells of that match, as if were lacking confidence...

He'd never admit it in the middle of a tournament, so we're guessing a bit, but the upshot was that Nadal was leaving many balls really short, missing a lot, and didn't use his key shot of the down-the-line forehand anywhere near enough.

It might be the case that he was feeling below par and on Tuesday he might feel fully fit, in which case he's a value price at 3.02/1 here, but he won't like the match time that the schedulers have given him.

Seasoned Nadal-watchers will have noticed that night sessions don't do Rafa's game any favours, with the chillier air and moisture adversely affecting his heavily spun forehand and a few days ago he even admitted as much:

"I don't like night sessions on clay," he said. "I don't like to play on clay during the night, because the humidity is higher, the ball is slower, and there can be very heavy conditions especially when it's cold. I think that makes a big difference between the way tennis is played on clay during the night and during the day."

And because of that scheduling and the respective current form of the pair I'll have to pick Djokovic to win this -4.5 games at 2.0521/20.

Alcaraz likely to be too strong for Zverev

The second quarter final is one that is weighted heavily in favour of Carlos Alcaraz, who's a 1.271/4 chance to beat Alexander Zverev, and that's a fair bit shorter than the 1.4840/85 that the Spaniard was when this pair met a few weeks ago.

That was in Madrid at altitude after Alcaraz had beaten Djokovic in an epic three-setter, but it was Zverev that ended up being the one complaining about fatigue, as the German's semi final started really late.

Zverev complained bitterly about the scheduling and it may well have affected him, but it's hard to fancy him turning things around against Alcaraz in slower conditions than those in Madrid.

Zverev's best clay results have come in Madrid and he finds and retains his peak level all match there's nothing in the respective clay stats of this pair that hint at a Zverev victory.

For me he doesn't have the kind of ground game likely to cause Alcaraz that many problems unless Zverev makes a conscious effort to take the ball much earlier and be more aggressive than he often is.

He can do some damage on serve for sure, so if the serve is firing he might keep this close, but I'm not tempted to back him on Tuesday, and I'll just take half a point on Nadal.