Seven-time champion Rafael Nadal could face top-seeded Novak Djokovic in the French Open semifinals a year after they met to decide the title.
Friday’s draw for the clay-court Grand Slam tournament placed Nadal and Djokovic on the same half of the field, while Roger Federer could face David Ferrer in the other semifinal.
Federer, the owner of a record 17 major titles including the 2009 French Open, will face a qualifier in the first round — and if he wins that, he’ll play a qualifier in the second round, too. Djokovic faces a far more intriguing start: The reigning Australian Open champion’s first-round opponent is David Goffin, a 22-year-old Belgian who took a set off Federer in the fourth round in Paris last year after making it that far as a lucky loser.
No man has won the title at Roland Garros as many times as Nadal, who broke a tie with six-time champion Bjorn Borg by defeating Djokovic in last year’s final and is 52-1 for his French Open career. Nadal also has reached the finals of all eight tournaments he’s played in 2013.
But because the Spaniard missed about seven months with a left knee injury, his ranking slipped to No. 4, and the French Open decided not to bump him to a higher seeding.
If the tournament had placed Nadal at No. 2, he and No. 1 Djokovic only could have met in the final; instead, a Nadal-Djokovic rematch for the championship can’t happen in 2013.
Serena Williams wants to end her own, shorter drought in Paris — her lone French Open title came in 2002 — and her bid for a second championship will begin against 83rd-ranked Anna Tatishvili in the first round.
The possible women’s quarterfinals are: Williams against No. 8 Angelique Kerber, defending champion Maria Sharapova against No. 7 Petra Kvitova, No. 3 Victoria Azarenka against 2011 champion li Na, and No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska against 2012 runner-up Sara Errani.
Tweeting Federer
PARIS: Roger Federer is finally on Twitter.
He says Friday he waited to join the social media site until after seeing how other athletes used it.
Speaking at the French Open, Federer says: “At the end of the day, it’s got to be something I needed to feel comfortable with.”
He accrued more than 150,000 followers within the first 18 or so hours of tweeting for the first time from his verified account, (at)rogerfederer. He’s still got quite a ways to go to catch rivals Rafael Nadal — who has more than 4 million followers — and Novak Djokovic — at about 1.8 million — on Twitter. AP