Preview ATP Roland Garros 2025 Day Thirteen: Sinner and Djokovic reignite rivalry as Alcaraz battles against Musetti

This Friday, the ATP Roland Garros semifinals will be contested with the last four players competing for a spot in Sunday's final. Favorites Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner will seek a victory that could give the public a dream French Open final, repeating what happened in Rome a couple of weeks ago.

There are no major surprises among the top four, with Alcaraz and Sinner advancing without problems as predicted at the start of the tournament. They will be challenged by an in-form Lorenzo Musetti (the second player with the most wins on the clay-court swing, behind Alcaraz) and the 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, who has rediscovered his best level in Paris.

Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz comes into this clash as the favorite, seeking a place in the final. He boasts a 12-match winning streak at Roland Garros and a virtually impeccable clay-court swing, with a 20-1 record since his first tournament on the surface at the Monte-Carlo Masters. It was precisely there that Alcaraz faced Musetti in the final, securing his first Masters 1000 title on clay this season.

In recent months, Alcaraz has won titles in Monte-Carlo and Rome, in addition to reaching the final at the Barcelona Open – where he suffered his only defeat against Holger Rune (eliminated from Roland Garros this week by Musetti). The Spaniard missed the Madrid Open due to injury in between these events.

On the other side, Musetti is the second player with the most victories in the European clay-court swing, having reached the final in Monte-Carlo and the semifinals in Madrid, Rome… and now the French Open. He holds an 18-3 record in the swing, and two of those defeats came against 'Carlitos'. Now he'll have a third chance for revenge and to reach his first Grand Slam final, though he'll have to snap the Spaniard's remarkable 11-match winning streak.

These two players are almost from the same generation: Alcaraz at 22 and Musetti at 23. They already have a rivalry with six previous encounters – five of which were victories for Alcaraz. However, the Italian did defeat him in a significant instance: the final of the Hamburg Open in 2022, also on clay courts. Alcaraz appears to be the favorite to win this time, but Musetti will arrive with knowledge of what he needs to do to trouble his opponent, whom he pushed to three sets in the Monte-Carlo final and who also had a close contest in Rome, despite it ending in straight sets for the Spaniard.

The Italian three-time Grand Slam champion hadn't received enough credit on clay courts earlier in his career, a surface where he was never truly seen displaying the same level as on hardcourts. However, he has been overwhelming since his return, with a 10-1 record, only falling in the Rome Open final to Alcaraz. Sinner has not only amassed a large number of consecutive victories, but at the French Open, he hasn't even dropped a set, dominating most of his matches. In his last three matches, he lost a mere 17 games in 9 sets played: an average of less than two games per set, all against formidable opponents like Jiří Lehečka, Andrey Rublev, and Alexander Bublik.

The world No. 1 will now face his first major challenge of the tournament against 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, who is also inspired, with a 9-match winning streak and having recently secured a top-10 victory against Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals. The Serbian was full of doubts just weeks ago, but he won his 100th title in Geneva and hasn't slowed down in Paris, looking increasingly close to a potential 25th major title.

Nole hadn't faced any high-profile opponents in the first four rounds, not dropping sets but also not encountering any rival within the top 70. However, in the quarterfinals, he delivered a tennis masterclass against the 2024 finalist Alexander Zverev, coming from a set down to secure a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory and stamping his credentials as a contender.

It will be a true blockbuster in the reunion between Sinner and Djokovic on the court. The head-to-head is 4-4, and their last encounter was in the Shanghai Masters 2024 final. Sinner has won their last three encounters, though they've only met once on clay, back in Monte-Carlo 2021, where Djokovic overwhelmed a young 19-year-old Sinner. This time, the reality is different for both, and it's difficult to predict a clear favorite to win.