French Twists Ahead

Do you like predictability, or the total lack thereof, in your Grand Slam draws? Looking down the women’s brackets at this year’s French Open, a theme emerges. With name after name, I try to imagine the player holding the winner’s trophy two Saturdays from now. There are a lot of possibilities: Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber, Garbiñe Muguruza, Simon Halep, Agnieszka Radwanska; even Svetlana Kuznetsova, Madison Keys and Timea Bacsinszky. But outside of Serena, would you put your money on any of these players? Plenty of women have made strong runs this season, but for every peak there has been a valley. Even Azarenka, the player who seemed ready to take the tour by storm a month ago, has been struggling with injury again.

You can lament the state of the WTA; it doesn’t offer the same sense of gravitas at the top that the men's tour does in Paris this year. Or you can enjoy the unexpected twists and turns that this draw—its potentially anarchic bottom half in particular—is sure to bring us. It can be nice not having any idea how a story is going to go.

My talk of unpredictability aside, Serena remains the favorite. She looked sharp and hungry in Rome last week, where she won her first title of 2016. And she has a chance to make history in two ways in Paris. As you surely know, a win would tie her with Steffi Graf on the all-time major-title list with 22; but what’s just as impressive to me is that Serena would also join Graf as the only players, WTA or ATP, to win each of the four Grand Slams at least four times. Now that’s all-around dominance.

But big records require big efforts, and Serena’s fourth French won’t come easy. While she has obviously improved on clay, it’s still not her favorite surface; and while she owns three titles at Roland Garros, she has six at each of the other three majors. Even her win in Paris last year was a precarious journey that forced her to rise from her sick bed on multiple occasions and win five three-set matches.

So how does Serena’s road look this time? It could have been easier. She’ll start against Magdalena Rybarikova, a player who is better than her ranking of 76 would indicate, though she won just two games in her only meeting with Serena three years ago in Canada. After that, challenges could come from Kristina Mladenovic, a Frenchwoman who tends to rise to the occasion against top players in front of her home fans; Ana Ivanovic, who won the French in 2008; and Azarenka in the quarterfinals. Vika hurt her back in Madrid, but she had Serena on the ropes here in the third round last year. Another match between the two could be a de facto final.

Also here: Carla Suarez Navarro, Elina Svitolina, Dominika Cibulkova, Andrea Petkovic

Semifinalist: S. Williams

The third-seeded Kerber has a chance at a rare feat: the Aussie Open-French Open double. So why is a second straight Slam for the German so hard to picture? Maybe it’s because in the months since winning in Melbourne, Angie has settled back into her old up-and-down groove. As she did in 2015, Kerber began the clay season with a title in Stuttgart before bombing out early in Madrid and Rome. If she continues that pattern, she’ll lose in the third round in Paris, the way she did to Muguruza last year. It could happen: Kerber is scheduled to face teen phenom Daria Kasatkina in the third round in 2016.

Players to Watch:

Keys: Does the Rome runner-up have a new lease on life with coach Thomas Hogstedt? We’ll find out more in Paris. Her draw gives her opportunities.

Bacsinszky: Like Azarenka, Bacsinszky seemed to have Serena dead to rights in last year’s semi...until she didn’t. This time she could face Eugenie Bouchard in the second round.

Johanna Konta: Since reaching the quarters in Miami, the 20th seed has had a hard time getting her clay season off the ground

Venus Williams: How many more times will we have a chance to see her in Paris?

Semifinalist: Bacsinszky

Here we begin the bottom half, and there are plenty of women who must be happy to have landed in it. No Serena, no Vika, no Kerber. Like Lucie Safarova in 2015, somebody has a shot to make a French final who may never have dreamed of making one before.

Could that somebody be Muguruza? Are we ready to believe in her again? One of the preseason favorites to win a major, she stumbled out of the gate badly to start the year, but began to find her footing again in Rome, where she made the semis. Her draw makes a second straight deep run seem plausible. The two seeds behind her in this quarter are Roberta Vinci and Petra Kvitova, neither of whom looks like a title threat, or even a semi threat, at the moment.

Sleeper: 2009 French champion Svetlana Kuznetsova

Possible second-round match to watch: Muguruza vs. Christina McHale. The American upset the Spaniard in Indian Wells in March.

Semifinalist: Muguruza

The same question we just asked of Muguruza can apply to Halep as well: Are we ready to believe in her again? She also got off to a dreadfully slow start in 2016, and she also showed flashes of her old glory recently when she won in Madrid. Halep's draw in Paris looks manageable, but as we’ve seen in her results there the last two years—finalist in 2014, second-round loser in 2015—you never know what you're going to get next.

Players to Watch:

Radwanska: The second seed has never been past the quarters in nine tries at Roland Garros.

Sam Stosur: This former French finalist could have a tough first-rounder against Misaki Doi.

Sloane Stephens: Basically, in 2016, she either loses in the first round or wins the tournament. I’m thinking she’ll end up somewhere in between here, but a semifinal run wouldn’t be a surprise.

Safarova: Illness has held her back since she made the final here last year; can she find the magic again?

First-round match to watch: Jelena Ostapenko vs. Naomi Osaka. These are two players we should be seeing more of in the future.

Semifinalist: Stosur

Semifinals: S. Williams d. Bacsinszky; Muguruza d. Stosur

Final: S. Williams d. Muguruza