Friends and foes: Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic practice together in Paris

The battle for the year-end No. 1 ranking between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic will resume in Paris, after both men confirmed their participation in the year's final ATP Masters 1000 event last week before even arriving in France.

But before the two men who split 2023's Grand Slam titles get back to that important business, they shared a friendly practice session at Accor Arena on the eve of the main draw.

Both men will open the tournament with a first-round bye, and Alcaraz. No. 2 Alcaraz, who suffered a season-ending injury in the quarterfinals of the Rolex Paris Masters a year ago that forced him to retire against Holger Rune, will face the winner of the first-round match between wildcard Alexandre Muller and qualifier Roman Safiullin.

No. 1 Djokovic, meanwhile, will open against either fellow Serb Miomir Kecmanovic or Argentina's Tomas Martin Etcheverry as he pursues his seventh title at the tournament.

Alcaraz needs to reach the final to have a chance of reclaiming the top ranking from Djokovic. and as the top two seeds, the pair can't play in Paris prior to the final.

In his pre-tournament press conference, Djokovic admitted that padding his already-legendary resume with more year-end No. 1 finishes (he already owns a record seven) is one of his chief motivations in the third decade of his tennis career.

"My greatest motivation is still love for the game. I really like competing. So as simple as that. Then I always have goals ... to win another slam, to be No. 1 again, to finish the year as No. 1," Djokovic said, also citing next year's Olympics and winning a Davis Cup for Serbia as other top targets.

"Of course any tournament where I play, I want to win, no doubt. But the big goals are the ones that I mentioned. So I think it's important to have clarity, you know, to have goals and ambitions and move towards them.

"I have, let's say, luxury right now to choose which tournaments I participate on, to set my schedule in such a way where I can peak at the right tournaments where I set my highest goals.

"As long as I'm [a] main contender for the Grand Slams and still [can] win the biggest tournaments in sport, I will not leave. I mean, unless mentally something happens and I really have no motivation anymore, but that's not the case for now."