The defeat in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open could pose an extra difficulty for the Balearic Islands in the face of their great goal on the clay tour: the conquest of their 14th Roland Garros. where Nadal will arrive in a less favorable condition compared to previous years.
After the ranking published this Monday by the ATP, Nadal appears in third position with 9,630 points, behind Novak Djokovic's 11,463 points and Daniil Medvedev's 9,780 points. A position that the Spaniard will not be able to improve at the 1,000 Masters in Rome, as Nadal defends 1,000 points as tournament champion in 2019 if you take into account his best result in the tournament between 2019 and 2020 (in 2020 he lost to Schwartzman in the quarterfinals).
Thus Rafa Nadal will arrive at Roland Garros a priori as third seed, and this is an extra difficulty for the Balearic. The fact of having been second in the ranking would have prevented Nadal from crossing with Djokovic until the final by going to different sides of the table. However, Entering the draw as number 3 could see Nadal and Djokovic reissue their match from last year … but this time in the semi-finals.
Nadal is also not guaranteed the fact of arriving as third seed at Roland Garros. The Spaniard could come as a fourth seed to Paris in the case of falling early in Rome and Dominic Thiem winning the tournament, which would allow the Austrian to climb to third place in the standings, since Thiem could reach 9,355 points. Nadal will now try to successfully defend that third place and try to stay as close as possible to Medvedev to reach Roland Garros in top form … even if he has more obstacles if possible.