Novak Djokovic will return to competition this week at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, ending a layoff that has stretched beyond seven weeks since his fourth-round defeat to Jack Draper at Indian Wells on March 12.
The 38-year-old Serb, a six-time champion at the Foro Italico, has already begun preparations on site, practising on Monday with Peruvian Ignacio Buse and following up Tuesday with a session on a temporary clay court erected at Piazza del Popolo, where hundreds of fans gathered to watch.
The layoff. The injury that surfaced during the Draper loss in California ultimately cost Djokovic his swing through Miami, Monte Carlo, and Madrid, ruling him out of the entire opening stretch of the European clay season.
He has not played a tour-level match on clay since his Roland Garros semi-final defeat to Jannik Sinner last June, a gap of nearly eleven months on the surface where he is, by any measure, less instinctive than on hard courts.
The Australian Open finalist arrived in Rome on a 7-2 season record, having reached his first major final since 2024 in Melbourne before the Indian Wells run was halted by Draper in a deciding-set tie-break.
The calculation. Rome will serve as Djokovic’s only clay-court tune-up before Roland Garros, a deliberate, late-career trade-off — fewer matches now, in exchange for a fresher body in Paris.
It is a familiar strategy from a player who has grown increasingly selective with his schedule, but the absence of any preparatory work in Monte Carlo or Madrid leaves him to find rhythm against live opposition cold. Djokovic himself has acknowledged in past seasons that clay, more than any surface, demands repetition to sharpen.
The draw. Seeded third behind Sinner and Alexander Zverev, Djokovic will open against either Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics or Croatian qualifier Dino Prizmic. He sits in the bottom half alongside eighth seed Lorenzo Musetti, a potential quarter-final opponent on home soil, with Zverev projected as a semi-final test.
Sinner, chasing a record-extending sixth straight Masters 1000 title and the Career Golden Masters, looms in the opposite half. Carlos Alcaraz, the defending champion, has withdrawn with a wrist injury.
The history. Djokovic holds a 68-12 record in the Eternal City, with title runs in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2020, and 2022 — a tally that includes two championship-match wins over Rafael Nadal at the Foro Italico.
He missed the tournament entirely last year after a third-round exit to Alejandro Tabilo in 2024, his most recent appearance. A seventh title would draw him within three of Nadal’s record ten in Rome, but his more pressing concern is simply finding form.
With Roland Garros opening on May 24, he has a fortnight to remind himself, and the rest of the field, what his clay-court game still looks like.
