World No. 1 Novak Djokovic won the 11th Grand Slam of his career in Melbourne earlier this year when he lifted the Australian Open for the sixth time to equal Roy Emerson’s record for the most number of titles at the event.
Although Djokovic now has his sights set on Roger Federer’s record of 17 Grand Slams, he is still short of the French Open to join an elusive club of players who have done the Career Grand Slam in the sport.
Djokovic can be backed at 8-11 in the French Open betting as of 20th April, Nadal is 3-1, Murray is available at 15-2 to win his first title at Roland Garros, and the defending champion Stan Wawrinka is 10-1 to retain his crown.
Seven players in the history of men’s tennis have won the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Fred Perry was the first man to do so in 1935 when his victory at Roland Garros completed his set of the four major trophies.
In the modern game, Andre Agassi waited seven years from his first Grand Slam victory at Wimbledon in 1992 to complete his Career Slam as he was successful in the 1999 French Open when he beat Ukraine’s Andriy Medvedev.
Given Rafael Nadal’s dominance on clay in the 2000s, it was always going to be difficult for arguably the greatest player the game has ever seen, Federer, to win the French Open, which was the only Grand Slam he had not won until 2009. The Swiss player was fortunate that Nadal had been surprisingly eliminated in the fourth round that year by Robin Soderling in what was one of the biggest upsets in the history of the competition. Federer went on to lift the clay court tournament when he beat Nadal’s conqueror, Soderling, 6-1 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 in the final that year to finally get his hands on the trophy in Paris.
The most recent entrant into the Career Grand Slam club is Nadal who did so in 2010 with a win in the US Open at Flushing Meadows. That is the best year of the Spaniard’s career to date as he won the final three Grand Slams of the year. He was the number one seed in New York and he justified that ranking as he beat fellow Spanish compatriot Fernando Verdasco, Mikhail Youzhny and Djokovic on route to the title.
Djokovic has come close to joining Federer and Nadal with a completed set of the major championships on three occasions as he reached the final in Paris in 2012, 2014 and 2015. He was beaten by Nadal in his first two finals, while 12 months ago he was expected to come out on top against Wawrinka. However, the Swiss number two came from a set down to win 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-4 to shock the world number one
