Four years after claiming the greatest triumph of his career in Arthur Ashe Stadium, where he squeaked past Alexander Zverev in an angst-ridden fifth-set tiebreak to secure his only major championship, the 30-year-old Austrian bade a poignant farewell on the same stage, falling to a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 defeat at the hands of the 13th-seeded Shelton.

The outcome, though, felt less significant than the occasion. For Thiem, who announced earlier this year that he intends to retire at October’s Vienna Open after failing to recover from a wrist injury suffered in the summer of 2021, merely making the starting line in New York was cathartic. If not for the former world No 3 himself, then certainly to the many onlookers left gobsmacked that, in his final season, he was overlooked for a wild card at both Roland Garros – where he was a finalist in 2018 and 2019 – and Wimbledon.

While Thiem was given a relatively low-key sendoff on Court Suzanne Lenglen after a second round qualifying loss in Paris, the United States Tennis Association did right by their former champion, granting him a place in the main draw and, fittingly, a final outing in one of the sport’s most historic arenas. It meant that Thiem, whose 2020 title win was played in a stadium bereft of spectators because of the coronavirus pandemic, was belatedly able to share a moment with the New York public.

“Thank you so much for all your support on all those years,” said Thiem, addressing the crowd after a lovely show of respect from Shelton, who exchanged warm words with his vanquished opponent before orchestrating the home crowd’s applause for the former champion. “It’s been 10 years since I played here the first time.

“It’s actually a really important moment for me, because I had the greatest success of my career here on this court in this weird 2020, under very strange and different circumstances. Unfortunately, I had this success without any of you. So that was of course, at one point, a really amazing moment, but on the other hand also pretty sad.

“So I’m super happy that I got the chance to play my last US Open, my last match here, on this court, and I can spend now some time here with you guys, just to say thank you to all of you and make the time up for what we have missed four years ago. So that’s a really special moment, and I’m very grateful for everybody who came and everybody who got me the chance to play here one last time.”

Thiem’s evident gratitude was in one sense a measure of his perverse treatment at the preceding two majors, yet the Austrian has learned the hard way to take nothing for granted. His injury, which came at a moment when he was rediscovering his passion for the game after struggling to come to terms with the enormity of his victory in New York, was both cruelly timed and a brutal reminder of how fragile a career can be in elite sport.

“You hate to see a guy like that, such a nice guy, great player, go through the injuries and deal with all that he’s dealt with,” said Shelton. “But I think if I learn anything from him, it’s that this is a game that is unforgiving. Things can change quick. You can be at the top of the game, and your body doesn’t hold up or some freak accident happens. Injuries happen all the time. So tennis isn’t forever.’

In many ways, Shelton was an apt author of Thiem’s final US Open chapter. For all the stylistic differences between the pair, there are also parallels. They may be at opposite ends of their respective careers, but Thiem too was once the big-hitting, hyper-athletic young buck eager to crash the party against more celebrated rivals. For Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer then, read Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and (perhaps more contentiously) Holger Rune now. Different trio, similar challenge.

Already two places clear of the 15th-ranked Rune, Shelton is on a promising trajectory – even if his quest to defend the 720 points he earned for last year’s run to the semi-finals has been complicated by a draw that could pit him against Frances Tiafoe in the third round, followed by Djokovic. In fine fettle after skipping the Olympics to ply his trade on home soil, where he has already posted a semi-final finish in Washington and made the last eight in Cincinnati, Shelton moved smoothly through the gears against Thiem, pulling away rapidly after securing a tight opening set. How dearly he would like to follow the path trodden by Thiem four years ago.

“I feel pretty fine-tuned with the little things on the court right now,” said Shelton. “I’ve gotten a lot of match play.

“Coming into this tournament last year, I had little to no confidence, hardly any match wins. So it feels a little different being here this year. I just feel a little more at peace with my game, and I feel like I know my identity out there on the court.”

Thiem too knows what it is to have a clear sense of identity – and, until he fell victim to injury, that identity was almost invariably one of a winner. The pattern is nowhere more apparent than in his record against the big three of Nadal, Djokovic and Federer, against whom he won a collective total of 16 matches in 35 meetings. Although Thiem was unable to find a way past those players in grand slam finals, twice finishing runner-up to Nadal in Paris and losing out to Djokovic at the 2020 Australian Open, it is a tally neither Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, nor any other player born after 1990 can match. There could be no clearer evidence that his was a generational talent.

“I had really legendary matches against the best players in our era, maybe the best players in history,” said Thiem. “Each of them is really unique. I have the feeling it depends on the day, it depends on the surface, who is actually the toughest to play.

“I had matches against them where I was winning, against each of them, but I also had matches against each of them where I didn’t have any chance and where they made me look like almost a beginner. I mean, each of them is unique.”

As his monumental US Open victory demonstrated, so too is Thiem.

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For Nadal, at least, such moments have been plentiful, but both men have faced physical challenges since, Thiem struggling to recapture his best form after missing nine months with a wrist injury, Nadal suffering a hip injury at last year’s Australian Open that eventually required surgery. So as the Spaniard returned to the match court for the first time in almost a year, the relatively humble setting of the pair’s latest showdown, at an ATP 250 event in Brisbane, seemed to offer an appropriate reflection of their altered fortunes. 

The standard of tennis, on the other hand, did not, Nadal producing a performance full of quality, spirit and intensity to clinch an absorbing contest 7-5, 6-1. It was a highly encouraging first step for the 37-year-old, who has been at pains to play down the sense of expectation surrounding his return but may have surprised even himself with the level he found against an opponent who initially matched him blow for ferocious blow. Ever cautious, Nadal was not about to get carried away.

“It’s only a positive start,” said Nadal, who has admitted this year could be his last on the professional tour. “I mean, it’s just one match, after a year, that I played quite well. If we take all the circumstances before that match, it has been a very positive match. [But] it’s just a match. 

“First and most important thing today is to stay healthy, honestly. My approach didn’t change at all after this match. My approach is just to try to enjoy every single day that I have the chance to be on court. 

“If I am able to play more matches, it will be more helpful in terms of recovering things that, of course, you need to recover if you want to be competitive.”

One thing Nadal has most certainly recovered is his serve, the bedrock of this impressive first display and the source of some outstanding numbers. The Spaniard, who did not face a break point throughout, dropped a total of just six points on his delivery, winning 90% of his first serve points and 80% on the second. Unsurprisingly, given those statistics, love holds quickly became the norm for the Spaniard.

With Thiem barely less effective on serve, the pattern of the contest quickly became clear, Nadal seeking to pin the former US Open champion in his backhand corner while Thiem looked to grasp the initiative early in the baseline exchanges with crunching forehands. Rarely can a match between players ranked 98th and 672nd have provided a more compelling spectacle.

Given the nature of the injury that kept him out for so long, Nadal’s movement was a natural point of focus in the early stages. He had looked comfortable enough in a first-round doubles defeat with Marc López, the Spaniard alongside whom he won an Olympic gold medal in 2016, and who is now a member of his coaching team. But a first singles match was always going to be the acid test, and Thiem was not slow to examine his rival’s athleticism with a teasing drop shot. Nadal’s initial step was perhaps fractionally slower than we have come to expect but, once he got going, there was nothing wrong with either his acceleration or the brilliant angled winner he produced at the end of the run. It will take many more such moments before he has the confidence of old in his body but, for now, he is content with what he called “a happy day for me”. 

“I really think that I don’t forget how to play tennis,” said Nadal. “The only thing that’s going to be difficult [is] to make it in a professional match and in a very high level of tennis. Because at the end, you need to recover movement, something that takes time.  

“After the surgery, you feel scared sometimes to do a [certain] kind of movement. You need to recover the speed and reading [of] the ball, making the things in automatic way. Something that you need matches to make happen.”

With his 1,069th ATP Tour victory, Nadal moved into fourth place on the list of most open-era match wins, pulling clear of Ivan Lendl but behind Novak Djokovic (1,089), Roger Federer (1,251) and Jimmy Connors (1,274). He will target a 1,070th success against Australia’s Jason Kubler, a straight-sets winner over Aslan Karatsev, the eighth seed, on Thursday.  

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On the one hand, Thiem is a former US Open champion and world No 3 whose clay-court pedigree, as a two-time finalist in Madrid and at Roland Garros, is beyond reproach. On the other, the Austrian is working his way back from a wrist injury that kept him out of the game for 10 months, and has not won a tour match in more than a year. 

Murray, of course, knows all about the challenges involved in returning from long-term injury, having undergone career-saving hip surgery three years ago. The Scot is not yet where he would wish to be, but he is significantly further along than Thiem, who is just four matches into his recovery, and the difference in competitive sharpness told. In that respect, the contest emphasised why it made sense for Murray, twice the champion in Madrid, to rethink his original plan to skip the clay-court season. The 34-year-old was forced to work hard by Thiem, but his superior tactical clarity, greater consistency and unwavering mental intensity were enough to earn a 6-3, 6-4 victory, his first on a clay court for two years.

“I felt very clear about how I wanted to play tonight,” said Murray, who has just completed a month-long training block with Ivan Lendl in Florida following the revival of their coaching partnership. “I have worked really hard the last four or five weeks, probably longer than that. 

“Before I went to Indian Wells, I felt like I was starting to become a little bit clearer with what I wanted to do and was therefore maybe more engaged in the practices and believing that I’m doing the right things. I feel like in the important moments that helps, when you have a clear head and clear thoughts. From that side, like mentally, I did really, really well tonight. I’m really proud of that side of things. My attitude and my energy on the court was really good.”

Murray’s handling of the key points was exemplary. When a double fault brought up a first break point on his serve early in the second set, he shrewdly altered the direction of his delivery, redirecting his attack away from the Thiem backhand to slam an ace down the centre. Two more break points followed, but Murray was now parading the full range of his repertoire, some fine approach play hustling the Austrian into error before he courageously followed in a kick serve to slot away a backhand volley. After a 10-minute struggle, Murray finally held with a flicked forehand half-volley that the stretching Thiem, drawn in by a drop shot, could only volley into the net from shoelace-level.  

Thiem showed flashes of his old self, particularly in the initial stages. An early reminder of his enduring class came in his opening service game, when the 28-year-old speared a backhand winner down the line to complete a tricky hold. His movement is as sharp as ever, which it needed to be as the pair engaged in an entertaining drop-shot duel, and his service remains a potent weapon. But on the forehand side, Thiem’s reluctance to trust fully in his wrist was evident, with the venomous topspin that has traditionally been his hallmark notably absent. It was a shortcoming that Murray exploited with variations of height and spin that repeatedly drew his opponent into error.

“I haven’t spoken to him about it, but I also had a wrist problem in 2007, I think it was,” said Murray, who will face Denis Shapovalov, the 14th seed, in round two after the Canadian beat Ugo Humbert of France 7-6 (7-1), 6-3. “It’s difficult when you try to come back from that, because the pain that you feel when you initially hurt it, mentally [makes it] very difficult to let go of the wrist.  

“I think at times tonight he did, but there are certain shots that are clearly a little bit more difficult, like when the ball is low and you know you really have to use your wrist to get the ball up and down, or sometimes when the ball is coming fast and quite high, you know, you need to use your wrist a lot to bring the ball down. That shot was certainly inconsistent.”

Murray offered warm encouragement as the pair shook hands afterwards. “Great to see you back,” he told Thiem. “Keep going. It takes a lot of time, but you’ll be fine.” 

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“World No 1 Novak Djokovic has withdrawn from the 2022 ATP Cup,” organisers of the season-opening team event, which gets underway in Sydney on New Year’s Day, said in a statement. “Team Serbia will now be led by world No 33 Dusan Lajovic.”

Tennis Australia had previously denied reports emanating from Djokovic’s homeland that he would not play at the ATP Cup, stating that there had been no withdrawals from the Serbia team.

Djokovic’s initial inclusion on the ATP Cup entry list was widely seen as an indication that he planned to appear at the Australian Open, despite the tournament’s stipulation that all competitors must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 unless approved for a medical exemption by an independent panel of experts. 

Djokovic has refused to reveal his vaccination status, insisting it is a private matter, but has repeatedly advocated freedom of choice. In April last year, he stated that he was “opposed to vaccination”, although he conceded that his stance could change. 

The stakes could not be higher for Djokovic over the Australian summer. The Serb, who has won a record nine titles at Melbourne Park, is currently level with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on 20 majors. Another victory would lift him clear of his two great rivals as the most successful male player in history, leaving him just three wins short of Margaret Court’s all-time slam record of 24.

However, Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, suggested last month that his son would probably miss the Australian Open, insisting players were being held to ransom by the tournament’s Covid rules. “It is the personal right of each of us whether we will be vaccinated or not,” he told the Serbian television network Prva. “Under these blackmails and conditions, [Djokovic] probably won’t [play the Australian Open]. I wouldn’t do that. And he’s my son, so you decide for yourself.”

A Serbian newspaper claimed on Tuesday that Djokovic would withdraw from the Australian Open after being denied a medical exemption. “As things stand now, Novak is not going to Australia,” a source close to the player’s family allegedly told Informer. “The medical commission rejected him for medical exemption and will not allow him to play unvaccinated.”

Last weekend another Serbian publication, Blic, broke the news that Djokovic would not compete at the ATP Cup.

Both newspapers are based in Belgrade, where Djokovic has been practising at his tennis centre in the Dorcol neighbourhood.

One player definitely out of the Australian Open is former finalist Dominic Thiem. In an announcement on social media, the Austrian said his rehabilitation from the wrist injury he suffered at the Mallorca Open in June was progressing well, but that he had decided to withdraw from the first slam of the season “in order to have a good return to competition” at the Cordoba Open in Argentina, which begins at the end of the month.

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Nadal was seen limping the day after his defeat to Novak Djokovic at the French Open in June, and subsequently pulled out of Wimbledon and the Olympics.

The Spaniard showed visible signs of discomfort on his recent return to action in Washington, hobbling away from a gruelling victory over Jock Sock in his opening match before he fell to South Africa’s Lloyd Harris in the next round. Nadal then withdrew from the following week’s Toronto Masters, where he would have been the defending champion, casting doubt on his prospects of making the US Open, which begins at the end of the month.

Concern intensified when Nadal announced his withdrawal from this week’s Cincinnati Masters, and the 35-year-old has now confirmed that the injury, first diagnosed in 2005, will cause the curtailment of his season.

“I have been suffering too much with my foot for the last year,” said Nadal. “I missed a lot of important events for me, like the US Open now, like Wimbledon, Olympics, and many other events that are so important and emotional for me.”

Having returned home from Toronto, where he had initially hoped to play before accepting that his injury would not allow it, Nadal sought advice from doctors and those close to him before deciding to call time on his season.

“The foot is not [in] a proper way today, and during the last year I was not able to practice and prepare myself the way that I need to be competitive at the standards that I want to be,” said Nadal, who would have been bidding for a record-breaking 21st grand slam title in New York.

“I am confident that I will recover myself 100% and I will be able to fight again for the most important things. The injury is nothing new, it is the same injury that I have had since 2005.

“In that moment, the doctors were very negative about my future career. But I was able to have a career that I never dreamed about, so I am confident that I will recover again the foot. And if the foot is better, I am confident that my tennis and my mentality will be there again soon.”

It is by no means the first time that the injury, a congenital problem first identified when Nadal was 19, has impacted his career. While the use of special insoles enabled him to play on despite the initial verdict of a specialist that his career was over, the inserts triggered a host of other physical complications, most notably with his knees and back. Painkillers have become a way of life for the Spaniard.

“A lot of times, almost always, he would have to take a painkiller because the pain would get worse and worse as matches went on,” Toni Nadal, Rafa’s uncle and former coach, revealed three years ago.

“Because of some insoles that he started using, which solved his foot problem, he started having problems in his knee, back and other parts of his body.”

“I remember in 2013, he told me… ‘Sometimes, I wish I’d win less and have less pain.’”

Nadal’s announcement follows a similar statement from Roger Federer, who revealed on Sunday that he is to undergo knee surgery for the fourth time in his career. Federer, who recently turned 40, said he would be “out of the game for many months”, but wanted to give himself “a glimmer of hope” of returning to the tour “in some shape or form.”

Nadal struck a more upbeat note. “[There] remain a couple of beautiful years, I really think,” said the world No 4. “I will be back, and I will be back the right way.”

Nadal and Federer aside, the US Open will also go ahead without Dominic Thiem, the world No 6 and defending champion, whose season is over amid ongoing problems with his wrist. 

“I’m really disappointed not to be able to defend the title in New York but I haven’t recovered from the wrist injury I suffered back in June at the Mallorca Open,” said Thiem, who wore a splint for six weeks before returning to the practice court. “My recovery was going really well, but then last week I hit a ball during training and started to feel some pain again. I went straight to see the doctors. After some tests, they said that my wrist needs more time.”

In the absence of the injured trio, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas are the headline acts at the Cincinnati Masters. 

Medvedev, the top seed, defeated Olympic bronze medallist Pablo Carreno Busta 6-1, 6-1 to reach the last four and extend his winning streak to eight matches after winning the Toronto Masters last week. Next up for the Russian is his compatriot Andrey Rublev, the fourth seed, who battled to a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win over Benoît Paire of France.

“I’m happy to play against [Medvedev], because it’s a nice challenge for me to see what I need to improve, because after losing to him previously, I always improve more and more,” said Rublev. “It’s going to be close, like a chess match, long rallies. I need to fight for every ball. We’ll see. It’s going to be interesting.”

Tsitsipas will face Alexander Zverev, the Olympic champion, in the last four after overcoming Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 5-7, 6-1. The Greek second seed was made to work hard for the win, however, clinching the decider with a dominant performance after missing two match points at 5-4 in the second set. ““Tennis is a psychological game and things like this happen. It’s important to just stick to your roots and what you are doing best,” said Tsitsipas at courtside. “It might not have been ideal in the second set, especially when I made so many opportunities and had such a good opportunity to close it a bit earlier. But with a lot of patience and just trying to find that opportunity in the third set, I was stepping in, I was really determined and I didn’t let go.”

Zverev eased past Norway’s Casper Ruud, who had won 15 of his previous 16 matches, 6-1, 6-3. Looking ahead to his semi-final showdown against Tsitsipas, Zverev said: “I think Stef is somebody who is in incredible form right now and he’s looking forward to playing this match as well because we’re right in front of the US Open. We should be playing our best tennis, and I think it’s going to be entertaining for all of us. When you’re in the semi-finals of a Masters, you’re playing your best tennis. I just feel like when I’m playing at my best, I can compete and beat anybody.”

In the women’s event, top seed Ashleigh Barty consigned Barbora Krejcikova, the French Open champion, to only her third defeat in 28 matches. Barty, who beat the Czech 6-2, 6-4, will face Angelique Kerber in the semi-finals after Petra Kvitova, the 11th seed, pulled out of their quarter-final with a stomach issue with the German leading 6-3, 3-3. 

Karolina Pliskova reached the last four in similar fashion after Paula Badosa of Spain, who defeated third seed Aryna Sabalenka in dramatic fashion earlier in the week, retired with a shoulder injury while trailing 7-5, 2-0.

Pliskova will face Jil Teichmann next after the Swiss beat her compatriot Belinda Bencic, the Olympic champion, 6-3, 6-2. “We hugged before the match, we hugged after the match,” said Teichmann, who defeated second Naomi Osaka in the last 16. “We know that once we step on court it’s business, it’s just another player I have to deal with, and she had the same mindset. At the beginning it’s obviously a bit special, but once we’re in it, we just look at the game, not looking at the opponent.”

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That is not an accolade the humble Mallorcan would ever claim for himself, although he could be forgiven for wondering what he must do to get a decent draw at an event where he has accumulated a century of wins. Nadal is seeded third, in line with his world ranking, and has been thrust into the top half of the draw alongside Federer and Novak Djokovic, his arch rival and likely semi-final opponent if all goes according to plan. Not that he is complaining. 

“I see it as normal,” said Nadal, who faces Australia’s Alexei Popyrin in the first round. “One player is almost 40, another is almost 35 and the other is 34. It seems logical that younger players climb the rankings. Whenever that happens you have these consequences. I’m not worried about it.” 

Given that it is five years since he last beat Nadal on a clay court, perhaps it is Djokovic who should feel worried. While the world No 1 has been inexorably making his way to the final of the Belgrade Open, where he will play the Slovak qualifier Alex Molcan on Sunday, Nadal has been quietly steeling himself for the battles that lie ahead. After sparring with Casper Ruud at his academy in Manacor earlier in the week, the Spaniard arrived in the 16th arrondissement on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, following the rescheduling of last year’s event due to the pandemic. The thought of how many majors the defending champion might have accumulated by now if the chance to compete on clay usually came around so quickly must be the stuff of Djokovic’s nightmares.

Djokovic, of course, is chasing history of his own. Should the top seed repeat his 2016 title success to move just one slam behind Nadal and Federer, he would become the first man in the Open era to win every major twice. The Serb embraces such records. Earlier this year, when he overtook Federer to set a new landmark for the most weeks at No 1 in the men’s rankings, he celebrated exuberantly with fans gathered outside the Novak 1 restaurant in his native Belgrade. On Thursday, when he beat Federico Coria in the Belgrade Open to usurp Guillermo Vilas from fifth place on the list of most matches won in the Open era, he declared himself “really fulfilled and very joyful”. Were he to get his hands on the Coupe des Mousquetaires for a second time, extracting it from his grasp might require surgical intervention.

While each passing week seems to bring up a new milestone for Djokovic, his presence in the Serbian capital on the eve of a slam highlights the chequered nature of his preparations for Paris. Dan Evans’ adroit use of slices and drop shots did for the Serb in Monte Carlo, and a semi-final defeat to Russia’s Aslan Karatsev at the following week’s Serbia Open did little to improve the world No 1’s mood. A run to the final in Rome, where he was stopped by Nadal in three sets, marked the resumption of relatively normal service, but whether that performance was enough to erase the memory of last October’s 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 humbling by the Spaniard on Court Philippe Chatrier remains to be seen. 

That said, Nadal too has shown signs of vulnerability. Andrey Rublev put paid to the Spaniard’s hopes of an 11th title in Monte Carlo, while the fifth-ranked Alexander Zverev derailed his tilt at a sixth Madrid Open. Those defeats were counterbalanced, however, by a 12th triumph at the Barcelona Open, where Nadal prevailed in three close sets against Stefanos Tsitsipas, and a 10th win at the Foro Italico, where he avenged the Zverev loss, moved level with Djokovic on 36 Masters 1000 titles and narrowed their career head-to-head to 28-29 in the Serb’s favour.

With Nadal and Djokovic lumped together in the top half of the draw, where Federer will need to find form quickly if he is to make an impression following his faltering return from a double bout of knee surgery, it is Tsitsipas who poses the greatest danger to the rest of the field. The Greek fifth seed, who has amassed a Tour-leading 33 match wins this year, set the tone for his clay-court campaign with an emotional victory in his adopted hometown of Monte Carlo, where he earned his first Masters 1000 crown at a venue where his mother, Julia Salnikova, had claimed a junior title four decades earlier. That result was followed by a run to the final in Barcelona, where Tsitsipas held a match point against Nadal, and a second title of the year in Lyon. 

The Greek, beaten by Djokovic in the semi-finals last year, is not oblivious to the opportunity afforded by the absence of the big three on his path to what would be a first grand slam final. “Finally, for once,” he quipped on Friday. This relaxed disposition should serve Tsitsipas well as he begins his title challenge against the French veteran Jeremy Chardy. Nor will the Greek be unduly perturbed by the presence in his quarter of world No 2 Daniil Medvedev. The Russian has made no attempt to disguise his antipathy to clay – “There’s always bad bounces, you’re dirty after playing – I really don’t enjoy playing on clay,” he said in Monte Carlo – and has yet to win a match at Roland Garros in four attempts. 

As for Dominic Thiem, much will much depend on his state of mind as he returns to the grand slam stage for the first time since taking a two-month break from the game. Has the fourth-ranked Austrian, twice a finalist in Paris, finally shaken off the physical and mental fatigue he seemed to suffer after the success of last year, when he won his maiden slam at the US Open?

Thiem has struggled with the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and, while a semi-final berth in Madrid seemed to offer encouragement in his pursuit of “the big goal of Roland Garros”, he described a straight-sets defeat to Cameron Norrie in Lyon as “a huge step back”. It is ironic, although hardly novel, that success should have subdued a player who so often looked hewn of granite even in defeat.

Thiem is seeded to face Alexander Zverev in the last eight, in what would be a repeat of their epic final in New York last September. The German, seeded sixth, will not be intimidated by that prospect. He beat Nadal en route to winning the Madrid Open and, having twice before made the quarter-finals in Paris, he will be eager to go further this time around.

Ultimately, though, all eyes will be on Rafa as he takes the most significant tilt at history of his storied career. Last autumn, the Spaniard arrived in Paris muttering discontentedly about the slow, cold conditions and the tournament’s switch to a less lively ball. He left with a 13th trophy. His rivals have been warned.

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