champion Malinin the world bronze medal Saturday in Saitama, Japan, where he made more history as the first to land the quad Axel at worlds.īut it already had him thinking that the way to reach the tops of both the worlds and Olympus might be to acknowledge his mortal limits. The self-styled “Quadg0d” already has shown the chutzpah (or hubris?) to go for the most technically difficult free skate program ever attempted at the world championships, including that quad Axel, the hardest jump anyone has tried. Favorite us!Īt 18 years old, Ilia Malinin already has reached immortality in figure skating for technical achievement, being the first to land a quadruple Axel jump in competition. Roger Federer, 40, hasn’t played since Wimbledon after knee surgeries and is not expected to return to Grand Slam tennis this year, if at all. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas losing in the fourth round. The other half of the draw was blown open with No. Alcaraz won his last two tournaments before Paris, including beating Nadal and Djokovic on back-to-back days on May 6-7, but was upset by Zverev in the quarterfinals. Then there was Carlos Alcaraz, who is the same age as Nadal was when Nadal won his first French Open. The Serb was bidding to match Nadal’s male record 21 Grand Slam singles titles. He had to overcome persistent foot pain that impacted his lead-up, which for the first time since 2015 included no titles in the early spring clay-court season.įRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Men | Women | TV Scheduleĭjokovic was the favorite after returning from his Australian Open ordeal to win the most recent significant clay tournament in Rome. The 35-year-old Spaniard is bidding to break 1972 French Open champion Andres Gimeno‘s record as the oldest singles champion in Paris.

Then he advanced from the semifinals after opponent Alexander Zverev retired with an ankle injury while Nadal led 7-6 (8), 6-6.

1 Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals to become the clear expected winner. 8 seed Casper Ruud, the first Norwegian man to make a major singles final. Nadal, seeded fifth and entering the tournament as the third favorite, plays Sunday’s final against No. Rafael Nadal had his work cut out to win a 14th French Open title.

Roland garros scores