First Quarter
Williams will open against 83rd-ranked Anna Tatishvili. The two have never played, and there’s no reason to expect a repeat of Serena’s first-round loss here last year Virginie Razzano—except that Razzano was ranked No. 111 at the time. Serena will be, needless to say, determined not to let that happen again. More interesting is a possible second-round match against France’s Caroline Garcia, who nearly upset Maria Sharapova in Paris in 2011. If that gets at all tight, the French crowd could become a factor, as they were in the Razzano match last year.
The closest seed to Serena is Roberta Vinci, an Italian slice queen who would at least give her a different look. A bigger-hitting threat could come from Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the Russian turned Parisian who has shown some progress since hiring Martina Hingis as her coach this year.
If her Grand Slam history is a guide, Williams will have a scare at some point over the next two weeks, a day when she won't be moving well or hitting crisply, when she'll be furious at herself for not playing her best. If and when that happens, her opponent will have a shot; we'll see if anyone can take it. Serena is obviously the best everywhere else, but she hasn't reached the semifinals in Paris since her infamous loss to Justine Henin, and her equally infamous hand, at Roland Garros in 2003.
Angelique Kerber is the top seed on the other side, though she’ll have her hands full in her opener, against fellow German Mona Barthel, the best unseeded player in the field. Kerber has had a see-saw year, but she likes clay, reached the quarters here in 2012, and does have a win over Serena, who was less than fully into their match in Cincinnati last summer. She’ll be fully into it if they play at Roland Garros.
Americans in Paris: Christina McHale, who starts against Jana Cepelova; Grace Min, who qualified and will face Galina Voskoboeva; Varvara Lepchencko, who play Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
First-round match to watch: Laura Robson vs. Caroline Wozniacki
Semifinalist: S. Williams