Draw held at the Foro Italico and cards drawn at the Masters 1000 in Rome.
The Spanish Rafael Nadal, the most successful in the tournament, will face a tennis player from the classification in the first round of his last participation in the Italian capitalwith Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, world No. 9, waiting in the second round.
Nadal comes to the duel with a certain optimism after his time in Madrid, a tournament in which the negative feelings at the beginning gradually disappeared until the round of 16, where he lost to the Czech Jiri Lehecka.
The Polish tennis player also fell in the round of 16 of the Madrid tournament, against the American Tommy Paul.
In case of overcoming the difficult duel against Hurkacz, the manacorí, ten-time champion in Rome, He would face in the third round the winner of the duel between the Argentine Tomás Etcheverry (28th) and the Brazilian Thiago Wild (61st); and in the round of 16 the winner of the probable duel between the Danish Holger Rune, tenth seed, and the Argentine Sebastián Báez (19th).
Later, in the quarterfinals, the Russian Daniil Medvedev (4th) appears, who despite being a hard court specialist and an enemy of clay, is the current champion of the Foro Italico, in what was his first tournament won. on this type of surface.
Only in the final could there be a duel between Nadal and the Serbian Novak Djokovic, No. 1 seed who returns to the fields after his absence in Madrid.
The Serbian wait in the second round for a qualy or Roman Safiulin and in the quarterfinals he would face the Norwegian Casper Ruud (7th).
Without the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz and the Italian Jannik Sinner in the draw, both out due to injury, the Serbian is the clear favorite to lift what would be his seventh crown in Rome.
The rest of the draw offered two other possible high-level quarterfinals between the German Alexander Zverev (5) and the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (10); and the Russian Andrey Rublev (6), new champion in Madrid, against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (8).
For his part, the Argentine Francisco Cerúndolo (22) will face the winner of the Italian duel between Giulio Zeppieri (144) and Matteo Gigante (139) in the second round; his compatriot Mariano Navone (31) will debut in second place against the winner of the duel between the Canadian Denis Shapovalov (126) and the Italian Luciano Darderi (54); and the Argentine Pedro Cachín (99) against the German Jean-Lennard Struff (41) in the first round.
In addition, the Colombian Daniel Galán (90) will face the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang (56) in the first round.
