Sunday will mark the start of this year’s French Open with 128 players fighting it out for the most prestigious clay court title in tennis.
This year’s event is taking place amid an ongoing dispute between players and the four majors over pay. During their pre-tournament press conferences, some players will cut short their media duties after 15 minutes to symbolise the estimated 15% share of the French Open’s revenue they are getting. Players are campaigning for a share of around 22%, as well as more investment into their pension schemes, a greater say in the decision-making process and improvements to their health care packages.
Besides this ongoing argument, there will be many other topics to follow in the men’s draw. Here are five things to watch out for over the next two weeks.
Sinner’s career slam bid
Jannik Sinner enters the French Open as the outstanding favourite, given his surge in form over recent weeks. The world No.1 has won his past five tournaments played, which were all at a Masters level. On the clay specifically, this year he joined Rafael Nadal in being the only players to have won Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome in the same season. To put his surge into perspective, until this year, Sinner had only won one Tour-level title on clay.
The Italian will be hungry for Glory in Paris after missing out on the title 12 months ago to Carlos Alcaraz, who is currently sidelined from action with a wrist injury. Sinner had three championship points but failed to convert them and ended up losing after five hours and twenty-nine minutes in what was the longest final in French Open history.
Should Sinner triumph, he will achieve a career slam (winning every major event) at the age of 24. In the open era, only five men have managed to achieve this milestone. They are Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andre Agassi.
Sinner will begin his campaign against wildcard Clément Tabur, who is yet to win a Grand Slam main draw match.
Djokovic chases history
Novak Djokovic, who turns 39 today, enters the French Open with questions about his current form. The Serbian delayed his start to the clay swing due to an arm injury before suffering a shock defeat in Rome to Dino Prizmic. The last time he entered the French Open with no main-draw wins on clay in the same season was in 2005.
It does seem like a tall order for Djokovic to clinch his fourth French Open trophy, but somebody of his calibre can never be ruled out. In recent years, he has prioritised Grand Slams ahead of other tournaments with a desire to peak at them. This is shown in his results with runs to the semi-finals of every Grand Slam last year and then the final of this year’s Australian Open.
Djokovic is aiming to become the first player – male or female – to win a 25th Grand Slam title. He is currently tied on the all-time list with Margaret Court, who won more than half of her titles (13) before the Open Era began.
Djokovic has a tricky opening match against the fast-serving Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, who hasn’t had much success on the Tour in recent months but will draw inspiration from his home crowd. He then has a potentially brutal run to the final with Joao Fonseca, Casper Ruud, Alex de Minaur and Alexander Zverev as potential opponents from round three onwards.
Zverev and Co seek first major
In this year’s draw, seven out of the top 10 seeds have never won a Grand Slam title, and only one of those has played in a major final before. Second seed Alexander Zverev is desperate to end his drought and take confidence from being a former French Open runner-up. He has played 18 Tour-level matches on clay since April, winning 14 of those. However, he has been comprehensively beaten by Sinner twice during this period and is yet to get a top-10 win under his belt so far this year.
Felix Auger-Aliassime and Ben Shelton lead the North American charge. This tournament is especially significant for Auger-Aliassime, who is defending only 10 points and could possibly break into the top three should Djokovic suffer an early exit. Meanwhile, Ben Shelton was triumphant at the BMW Open in Germany but has since lost three out of four matches played. Both of these players have never gone beyond the fourth round at Roland Garros.
Other players to look out for include Fritz and de Minaur, who have not shown any signs of being a French Open title threat in recent weeks for different reasons.
Further down the field, one name to look out for will be Casper Ruud, who is one of the Tour’s most consistent and strongest players on the clay. He is a two-time French Open finalist and has reached at least the semi-finals of one or more clay-court Masters events every year since 2020. He was recently runner-up at the Italian Open.
How will Jodar deal with the limelight?
Rafael Jodar is one of the few in recent history to make their French Open debut as a seeded player. The 19-year-old has risen more than 100 places in the rankings since January to the 29th spot. Over the past two months, he has won his first ATP title in Marrakech, reached the semi-finals in Barcelona as a qualifier and then made back-to-back quarter-final appearances at Masters events.
Given his recent run of results, Jodar brings plenty of intrigue and excitement to the French Open. Especially for Spanish fans with the absence of Alcaraz. It remains to be seen how he copes playing best-of-five matches, but he does have a favourable draw. He opens up against Aleksandar Kovacevic, who is currently enjoying a stellar run in Hamburg, where he has beaten Auger-Aliassime. Should Jodar win, he is projected to play Fritz in the third round. Jiří Lehečka and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina are potential fourth round opponents.
It is certainly not crazy to believe Jodar has what it takes to come through this section and reach the quarter-finals. Something that wouldn’t have been said about him at the start of this year.
Wawrinka, Monfils bid farewell
Two crowd favourites will be saying their farewells in Paris. Gael Monfils has already started his goodbye with a star-studded ‘Gael and Friends’ event on Thursday evening. The event raised money for several charitable organisations with appearances from Djokovic, Sinner, Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Naomi Osaka, Maria Sakkari and others.
Monfils is making his 19th main draw appearance at Roland Garros. He was a former semi-finalist back in 2008 and then reached the quarter-finals in three out of his next five appearances. In his final French Open, Monfils will play Hugo Gaston in the first round.
Stan Wawrinka will also be saying goodbye to Paris. He won his second of three Grand Slam titles at the French Open in 2015, beating Djokovic in the final. He was also runner-up in 2017 to Nadal.
Wawrinka’s opening match will be against 17th seed Arthur Fils in what will be one of the standout first-round matches.
