Djokovic’s Rome Stumble Puts Roland Garros Prep Under the Microscope

Novak Djokovic’s return to Rome did not go according to script, mostly because scripts are rarely kind to 38-year-olds trying to outrun Father Time and a finicky shoulder. The 24-time Grand Slam champion fell 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 to Croatian qualifier Dino Prizmic in his opening match at the Italian Open, and suddenly his French Open tune-up looks more like a traffic jam.

Italian Open · Second Round · 2026 Djokovic’s first match in nearly two months ended with Prizmic forcing a comeback and making history along the way.

Player	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
Dino Prizmic (CRO)	2	6	6
Novak Djokovic (SRB)	6	2	4

A Shaky Return Turns Into A Surprise Exit

Djokovic arrived in Rome having not played since Indian Wells and with a right shoulder issue still hanging around like an unwanted court side guest. He looked sharp at first, taking the opening set and breaking Prizmic’s serve, but the match changed quickly once the physical strain started to show.

By the second set, Djokovic was visibly off the pace. He had his taping out, his movement got heavier, and Prizmic, who is only 20, started swinging like he had somewhere better to be than a clay court in May.

The Croatian won four straight games to open the second set and kept the pressure on in the decider. Prizmic finished the job with an ace on his first match point, which is about as clean a closing statement as you can make against the most decorated men’s player of his era.

What Djokovic Said Afterward

Djokovic was not alarmist after the defeat, but he was honest, which in tennis often carries more weight than a dramatic press conference and a jacket over the shoulder. He said, “I don’t think I played so bad, to be honest,” and added, “It was a good battle in the end, but obviously I see what I am missing. I’m late half a step. I’m not definitely where I want to be.”

Later, he also called the buildup “not an ideal preparation,” and admitted, “Kind of a new reality that I have to deal with. Yeah, it is frustrating.” That is the kind of line that lands differently when it comes from a player with 428 weeks at No. 1 and 24 majors on the shelf.

Rome Brings More Questions Than Answers

The loss was Djokovic’s earliest exit from a tournament since Madrid in 2025, and it also marked a painful bit of history in Rome. He had never lost his opening match at the Italian Open in 18 previous appearances, which is the sort of stat that usually survives longer than a fresh overgrip.

It also means he heads toward Roland Garros without a warm-up match after confirming he will not play another event before Paris. That decision matters because clay-court rhythm is usually built in layers, not discovered like a spare coin in the back of the pro shop.

For Djokovic, the concern is not whether he can still beat a lot of the tour over best-of-three sets. He can. The concern is whether his body is ready for the grind of Grand Slam tennis, where the margins stretch, the matches drag, and the legs start negotiating.

The French Open Looms With No Easy Fix

Djokovic still owns one of the great careers in sport, and nobody needs a museum brochure to remember that. He has 24 Grand Slam titles, three French Open crowns, and the all-time record for weeks at world No. 1, but that history does not shorten the path to another trophy.

The next major begins May 24, just 16 days after this loss, and that schedule leaves very little room for correction. Last year, he salvaged a rough clay build-up by winning Geneva and still made the semifinals in Paris, but this time he has ruled out another pre-French Open tournament.

Prizmic, meanwhile, gets a career-defining result. He became the first qualifier ever to beat Djokovic in a comeback at an ATP Masters 1000 event, and at world No. 79, he is now the lowest-ranked player to do it. Not a bad day’s work for a player whose idol across the net was clearly trying not to lose his place in the draw, let alone the plot.

The larger picture is simple enough. Djokovic remains dangerous, but his margin for physical uncertainty is shrinking. Rome exposed that gap again, and now Paris will tell us whether this was a stumble or the start of a much rougher clay season than anyone in his camp expected.