Novak Djokovic surprisingly enters tournament a week ahead of French Open

Novak Djokovic has had a weird year for himself. He is struggling with his worst winning percentage since 2006 and has yet to reach even a final of any event he has played. Normally by this point in a season, Djokovic has likely won the Australian Open along with a handful of other tournaments. Whatever happened at the end of last year has seemingly carried over to 2024.

Sure, Djokovic won the ATP Finals again last November, but during the round-robin stage, he lost to Jannik Sinner. He then defeated Sinner in the final before losing to Sinner a few days later in the Davis Cup. The Serb losing to any player twice in the span of less than two weeks is extremely unusual so maybe the issue was his match-up with Sinner specifically.

That did not turn out to be the case, though. Djokovic began the year by losing to Alex de Minaur at the United Cup before losing against Sinner in Melbourne. De Minaur and Sinner are good players, however, so the losses were not shocking. What was a surprising loss was when Djokovic lost to qualifier Luca Nardi at the Indian Wells Masters.

Novak Djokovic accepts wild card to play in the Geneva Open

Through all of this, Djokovic simply has not gotten much work in either because he lost earlier in events than expected or taking time off. But he wants to be ready for the French Open and he has surprisingly accepted a wild card to play in the Geneva Open.

The Geneva Open is a ATP 250 tournament so clearly Djokovic is not entering the event to accrue points. He just wants to get some work in. The vent will run from May 18 through 25 with the final set for the day before the French Open is scheduled to begin.

The current field for the Geneva Open will not be an easy one for Djokovic, however. Assuming no one withdraws, the Serb could face players such as Casper Ruud. Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, and Nicolas Jarry. Any are capable of beating Djokovic is the form he has shown recently.

One might wonder if Djokovic bows out early in the event if his confidence will suffer more. He cannot be playing with much confidence currently compared to how much he normally does. Not winning might make one believe they can't win.

More tennis news and analysis