The Olympic Games Paris 2024 will be on the minds of the best men’s tennis players in the world this coming week (7-14 April) in Monte-Carlo, Monaco.

That’s because the Monte-Carlo Masters is the first major red clay event of the 2024 calendar, the same surface used at Roland-Garros, the site of the Olympic tennis event starting in July.

World No.1 Novak Djokovic is a two-time champion at the competition, in 2013 and 2015, but it’s Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner who feels like the player to beat so far this season, his 22-1 start earning him three titles – including last week at the Miami Masters.

Djokovic and Sinner are joined by Carlos Alcaraz as perhaps the top three favourites, but another Spaniard – 11-time champion in Monte-Carlo – Rafael Nadal, has withdrawn, citing a body that “simply won’t allow” him to play, he said on social media on Thursday (4 April).

Daniil Medvedev rounds out the top four, while defending champion Andrey Rublev, Olympic gold medallist Alexander Zverev and rising Danish star Holger Rune are all inside the top eight.

It’s the first of three Masters events on red clay (Madrid and Rome, too) for the ATP Tour in the lead-up to the French Open itself, which begins 26 May.