Novak Djokovic is a big outsider heading into his French Open quarter-final against world No 1 Jannik Sinner, but tennis legend John McEnroe has served up an alternative narrative around how the match might play out.<\/p>\n
Sinner has been in sensational form throughout the two weeks at Roland Garros, with his ball striking and consistency allowing him to blow away any opponent that has been placed in front of him.<\/p>\n
Sinner has beaten Djokovic<\/a> in their last three meetings, but McEnroe believes the script could be different this time if the 38-year-old can unsettle his youthful rival.<\/p>\n It may seem illogical to suggest that the veteran Djokovic\u2019s hopes of beating Sinner would have a better chance of winning if the match is extended into a fifth set, but that is the verdict from McEnroe.<\/p>\n Sinner missed three months of tennis due to a doping suspension, with McEnroe giving this verdict on one of the most eagerly anticipated matches of the year to TNT Sports.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s hopes of winning 25th Grand Slam at French Open assessed by John McEnroe <\/a><\/p>\n What Novak Djokovic said about his French Open showdown with Jannik Sinner<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBelieve it or not, I think that if it went to five sets, I would favour Novak, even though he\u2019s older,\u201d said McEnroe.<\/p>\n \u201cSinner hasn\u2019t played that much for a while. I think there\u2019s a little bit of a question mark of how he would hold up physically and mentally, having not played a lot of matches, which is pretty amazing to say that if you think about it, when one guy\u2019s 38 and the other guy\u2019s 23.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not going to be easy to deal with; I can promise you that. He knows that he\u2019s got a limited amount of chances left, I\u2019m guessing unless he\u2019s Superman. Maybe he is. But Sinner\u2019s going to be more aggressive than Zverev. He\u2019s not going to take it.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes when you watched Carlos play Tommy Paul, you could say Tommy Paul\u2019s not 100%, so play it safer. But actually what these guys do is play bigger \u2013 bigger because you have to make these super fast movements because they\u2019re hitting it so hard.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that actually is another way to break someone down. So I think Sinner\u2019s gonna come out trying to play that way and see if Novak can stay with him.\u201d<\/p>\n McEnroe also offered up his views on Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s semi-final with Lorenzo Musetti, as he predicted the defending champion will face a bigger test than his last match, when he demolished American Tommy Paul.<\/p>\n \u201cCarlos played incredible against Paul, but I think that Musetti is doing everything he possibly can,\u201d added McEnroe.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s fitter than ever. He\u2019s more comfortable at net. He\u2019s able to use his, he\u2019s got great hands and skills.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit like him and Zverev are the farthest back of any top players. And that usually means if you\u2019re playing the best of the best, you\u2019re gonna be doing more running. So I think he showed that Carlos will be able to step forward more and I think he\u2019s gonna need to do more of that.<\/p>\n \u201cMusetti was here four years ago. He got two against Novak and he ran out of gas. And then last year, it looked like he had him. They played until three in the morning. It was crazy. He\u2019s getting closer<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s better than he\u2019s ever been but so is Carlos. That\u2019s the problem. It\u2019ll be interesting to see Musetti does try to do different things and be more aggressive. That\u2019s not easy to do against Carlos because he still hits it so big.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch every moment of the French Open live and exclusively\u00a0on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n READ NEXT: Leading coach reveals Carlos Alcaraz \u2018changed everything\u2019 with key moment against Jannik Sinner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post John McEnroe makes \u2018Superman\u2019 claim as he offers up alternative Novak Djokovic verdict<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic is a big outsider heading into his French Open quarter-final against world No 1 Jannik Sinner, but tennis legend John McEnroe has served up an alternative narrative around how the match might play out. Sinner has been in sensational form throughout the two weeks at Roland Garros, with his ball striking and consistency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n