Rafael Nadal has avoided his main rivals in the draw for Roland Garros as he searches for an unprecedented 11th title.
The 10 time champion enters Roland Garros as the world number one after winning Rome last week and will face Alexandr Dolgopolov in the first round. After his first round contest he could face the likes Richard Gasquet and Jack Sock before entering the quarter-finals. In the other section of his quarter, the likes of Kevin Anderson and Philipp Kohlschreiber await. The latter will face Borna Coric in a difficult opening round contest as Diego Schwartzman could face the German in the third round. While 6th seeded Kevin Anderson will face Paolo Lorenzi in the first round as he is projected to face Nadal in the last eight.
The other section of this half of the draw sees Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro being the main protagonists. The third seeded Croatian could face Fabio Fognini and Kyle Edmund in the later rounds, before making the last eight. The in-form Edmund will have to negotiate Australian wildcard, Alex De Minaur in the first round as he could face Fognini in the third round.
In the other part of this quarter, John Isner begins his French Open campaign against fellow American Noah Rubin while Tomas Berdych will not find it easy to negotiate past French clay courter, Jeremy Chardy. Should Del Potro be fit enough for the main draw, he will face French wildcard Nicolas Mahut.
Nadal’s Rivals Enter Bottom Half of Draw
The third quarter of the draw is stacked with talent as David Goffin and Nick Kyrgios are the main contenders in the top half of this quarter. The Belgian will face Robin Haase in his first round, with a potential third round match with Gael Monfils awaiting in the third round. Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic both have qualifiers in the first match while third seed Grigor Dimitrov will have Viktor Troicki in a tricky first round match.
The bottom quarter sees 7th seed Dominic Thiem start with a qualifier before having a potential second round match with Greek rising star, Stefanos Tsitsipas. The 19th seed Kei Nishikori is also in this top part of the quarter as he takes on French wildcard, Maxime Janvier in the first round while Frances Tiafoe v Sam Querrey is a stand out match.
Former champion Stan Wawrinka enters the bottom half of the quarter with the 23rd seed playing Guillermo Garcia-Lopez as Lucas Pouille faces a tricky test in Daniil Medvedev as the two players look to be on a third round collision course. Second seed Alexander Zverev starts off against Ricardas Berankis with the German looking to finally beat a top 50 player at a slam.
Here is the full draw, with play starting this Sunday:
