The French Open kicks off tomorrow in Paris with a one week delay due to coronavirus restrictions. In the event of his next triumph in Paris, Spaniard Rafael Nadal will become the sole record holder for the number of titles won in Grand Slam tournaments, as he will overtake their 20-time champion Swiss Roger Federer.
Speaking about how events may develop at this French Open, it is generally difficult to say something new in comparison with what has been said for many years. For men, the main favorite, as before, will be Rafael Nadal, and for women, such a favorite, due to the lack of a clear leader in the game on clay, simply cannot be by definition. In addition, Simona Halep, the 2018 Roland Garros winner, who made a loud statement in mid-April about her desire to win all clay tournaments this year, withdrew due to a tear in her left calf muscle. And the 2019 winner of the first racket of the world, Ashley Barty, recently had old elbow problems. It is not surprising that bookmakers still consider last year’s Polish champion Iga Schwentek (9th racket of the world) the favorite of the tournament. She got in good shape and recently in the final of the Italian Open, the last major rehearsal before Roland Garros, she defeated Czech Karolina Pliskova (10th in the world) with a score of 6: 0, 6: 0. However, whether the 19-year-old tennis player will be able to cope with the psychological pressure, which in her situation is simply inevitable, is not yet clear.
Nevertheless, the tournament that starts tomorrow has a couple of peculiarities. The first is purely technical. Due to coronavirus restrictions in France, Roland Garros will start one week late, which was announced in advance. True, the delayed start will hardly be of fundamental importance. In any case, among the men of the top ten players this week, only the leader of the world rating Novak Djokovic, who will play in the final in Belgrade in the competition of the low category 250, is getting practice this week. How successful this choice of Serbs will be in terms of preparation for Roland Garros , It’s not clear yet. Although his American Tennis Sandgren in the first round, who won only one match out of six on clay this spring, is not an opponent that Djokovic should be wary of, even if he manages to hold only a couple of trainings in Paris.
The main theme of Roland Garros this time, of course, will be the pursuit of Rafael Nadal for perhaps the most prestigious tennis record – in the number of victories at Grand Slam tournaments. The Spaniard overtook the former sole record holder Roger Federer last fall in Paris – at the moment they have 20 victories, but now Nadal has excellent chances to get ahead. Moreover, the Swiss, although he ended up with Nadal in one quarter of the grid (by the way, like Djokovic), is unable to prevent this. After two surgeries last year for a knee injury, Federer played only two tournaments – in March in Doha and last week in Geneva, playing only three games in total. Therefore, even reaching the second round can be considered a relative success for him.
Nadal, on the other hand, seems to be in combat form. Of course, he didn’t look invincible this spring. In the quarterfinals of Monte Carlo and Madrid, the 34-year-old ground king lost to Andrei Rublev and Alexander Zverev, respectively, and in the 1/8 finals of the tournament he won in Rome (we also recall that Nadal won in Barcelona) was on the verge of defeat from Denis Shapovalov, having managed save two match points. However, similar imperfect clay seasons at Nadal sometimes happened in the past years, which were triumphant for him at Roland Garros. In addition, one cannot discount the desire to take the lead in the race with Federer. It is probably at an exorbitant level.
It is rather difficult to assess the prospects of the Russian participants due to their not very expressive performances in recent weeks. Apparently, Monte Carlo finalists Andrei Rublev and Aslan Karatsev, who beat Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the April Belgrade tournament, have the best chances to go far. They can meet already in the 1/8 finals. As for the second racket of the world, Daniil Medvedev, in the first round he will face the unpredictable Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan. On hard, Medvedev would be the clear favorite, but on clay in such a match, any result is possible.
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