Novak Djokovic suffers shocking loss at Italian Open

Novak Djokovic came back to Rome with a lot to prove and very little time to prove it. He left early with more questions than answers.

The 38-year-old former world No.1 was beaten by Croatian qualifier Dino Prizmic at the Italian Open on Friday, May 8, losing 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in his first match after two months away with a right shoulder injury. Prizmic sealed it with an ace on his first match point.

The loss put Djokovic’s French Open preparation in a precarious spot. He lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open final in February. He pulled out of Doha due to fatigue before losing to Jack Draper at Indian Wells in the fourth round back in March. The shoulder flared up there and he skipped Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid trying to get it right.

Rome was supposed to be the first step back. Now, it was a stumble.

The second-round exit was the earliest Djokovic had been eliminated from a tournament since the Madrid Open in 2025. He had never lost his opening match in Rome in 18 previous Italian Open appearances.

The six-time Italian Open champion, who had a first-round bye thanks to his No. 3 seeding, looked like himself in the first set. He broke Prizmic’s serve and was sharp around the net. Then the wheels came off. Prizmic rattled off four consecutive games to open the second set, using powerful groundstrokes to force Djokovic into mistakes. The 20-year-old carried that into the third set, broke Djokovic’s serve in the fifth game and never looked back.

Djokovic wasn’t too upset about the early exit.

“I don’t think I played so bad, to be honest,” he said to reporters after the match. “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.”

That’s the problem.

The French Open starts May 24. That’s 16 days away, meaning Djokovic’s clay-court preparation for that major consists of just one match, and a loss at that.

Djokovic, who holds the men's record with 24 Grand Slams, has won the French Open three times. He also holds the record for weeks as the world No.1 tennis player at 428 weeks and finished the year as the top-ranked player a record eight times. He currently is ranked fourth in the world.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Novak Djokovic loses to 20-year-old qualifier at Italian Open