PARIS—“I try to approach a Grand Slam same as any other tournament,” Elina Svitolina said in Rome last week, echoing the standard line that most players use before a major event.

Having just won a title at the Foro Italico a few minutes earlier, though, the Ukrainian was in an open and honest mood. It didn’t take her long to admit that pretending the French Open is no different from, say, the Samsung Grand Prix, wasn’t all that easy to do.

“You have in the back of your mind that it is a Grand Slam,” Svitolina said. “There’s something different about it. Definitely everyone is motivated to play against you when you’re a high seed.”

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What does Svitolina’s sometimes-shaky comeback bode for her chances?

What does Svitolina’s sometimes-shaky comeback bode for her chances?

After seven games of her first-round match at Roland Garros on Sunday, Svitolina’s words couldn’t have sounded much more prescient. Ajla Tomljanovic was playing highly motivated tennis. Despite her No. 68 ranking—64 spots behind Svitolina—it was Tomljanovic who was timing the ball better, who was coming up with the aggressive, rally-changing shots, and who was quickly up 5-1, and serving for the opening set at 5-2. While Tomljanovic’s backhand was finding the corners, Svitolina’s forehand seemed to be magnetically drawn to the net-cord.

For Svitolina, it was gut-check time; suddenly this had become one of the biggest moments of the 23-year-old’s career. Last May she had come to Paris as one of the dark horses after winning in Rome; this May, after beating Simona Halep easily to repeat at the Foro, many believe she’s the overall favorite for the title at Roland Garros.

But can a player who has never reached a Slam semifinal really by favored to win a Slam? This was the double pressure—to win this match and prove herself a big-tournament player—that Svitolina was under.

What she found out is that there’s an upside to being a high seed. While your opponents may start out highly motivated and with nothing to lose, they quickly get nervous when they build a lead; once they do have something to lose, and once a possible upset victory becomes a reality, everything changes.

You could see that change in Tomljanovic’s face, her body, and—most important—in her shot selection when she was up 5-2. Her breathing grew heavier, her backhands sailed wide of the sidelines instead of into the corners, and, out of nowhere, she went for a huge second serve that missed by five feet. After winning six of the first seven games, Tomljanovic would win three of the last 12. She had beaten herself before Svitolina could lay a glove on her.

“I was fighting to get back into the match,” Svitolina said when she was asked how she turned this 7-5, 6-3 match around. “And I think for me it was very important, you know, to play an extra ball over the net, and then to fight until the last point of the first set.”

WATCH—Tennis Channel's Jon Wertheim interviews Elina Svitolina after the match:

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That, in the end, was what Svitolina did better than Tomljanovic. She defended and made the extra ball, and when she was given a second chance in a point, she made the most of her opportunities. At the end of the first set, Tomljanovic went for broke and missed a crucial pass by a half an inch; Svitolina, by contrast, guided her own crucial passing shots safely within the sidelines.

Was this match a good sign or a bad sign for Svitolina’s French Open chances? On the one hand, her brand of solid, speed-based tennis has traditionally been a recipe for success on clay. On the other hand, Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniacki aside, it hasn’t been a recipe for Grand Slam-winning success on the women’s side.

Serena Williams’ serve, the backhands of Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka and Garbine Muguruza, Petra Kvitova’s power, Jelena Ostapenko’s go-for-it mentality: at the highest levels, the WTA of the last decade has been about weapons. Svitolina hits hard, but she wins with all-around competence rather than overwhelming power. When the chips are down, she can’t simply take the racquet out of her opponent’s hand. To win seven matches here, she’ll need some help from nervous opponents. She got it today from Tomljanovic, but she can’t count on it in every round.

“To be ready for a Grand Slam is always the goal, the main goal for me,” Svitolina said on Sunday. “I try to do everything in my power to play my best game in the Grand Slams.”

WATCH—Match point, Elina Svitolina:

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Yet Svitolina maintains that an early defeat here wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“Tennis is not only about one match,” she said. “We’re gonna have a tournament next week on grass, and, you know, there’s lots of tournaments. I’m 23 years old, so there is lots of tournaments ahead of me. I have a big future. I don’t only focus on that it’s the last match of my life.”

That’s certainly a healthy perspective, but it’s not one you hear often for win-or-bust competitors like Serena and Sharapova—sometimes you feel as if they really do treat every match as if it’s their last, and that’s why they win so many of them. Svitolina does have a big future, but futures, even at 23, don’t last forever.

Which may mean that the best sign for Svitolina isn’t that she won her first round, or that she came back from 1-5 down. The best sign may be that, after her press conference, she said she was going out to practice again.

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What does Svitolina’s sometimes-shaky comeback bode for her chances?

What does Svitolina’s sometimes-shaky comeback bode for her chances?

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