Osaka-Badosa, Alcaraz-Nishikori and more: the Top 5 first-round matches at Roland Garros

The men’s and women’s draws at Roland Garros were made on Thursday, and fans won’t have to wait long for exciting match-ups—there are a slew of them in the first round.

Here are five of the very best.

[8] Zheng Qinwen vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

When two players who’ve reached the final of a Grand Slam before have to play against each other in the first round, you know it’s going to be good—and this is one of those match-ups.

Zheng, a finalist at the 2024 Australian Open, comes in as the favorite, currently ranked No. 8 and coming off a phenomenal run in Rome, stunning world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals before (barely) falling to Coco Gauff in the semifinals.

While Pavlyuchenkova has had some up-and-down results since reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, she’s a very dangerous unseeded floater in the draw—not only did she reach her first Grand Slam final right here at Roland Garros in 2021, but she has a whopping 38 career wins over Top 10 players.

And the last of those Top 10 wins actually came against Zheng, with Pavlyuchenkova beating her on the hard courts of Cincinnati last summer, 7-5, 6-1. That’s the pair’s only previous meeting.

[30] Hubert Hurkacz vs Joao Fonseca

Fonseca has been one of the breakout stars of 2025, highlighted by winning the first ATP title of his career in Buenos Aires, which—at 18—not only made him the youngest Brazilian player to win an ATP title in the Open Era, but also the fourth-youngest player from anywhere to win one this century, after Kei Nishikori, Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz (two of whom feature later on in this list).

Fonseca has also picked up his first four wins over Top 30 players over the last six months, and he’ll have to pick up another one as he takes on Hurkacz, a former semifinalist at Wimbledon who’s reached the second week in Paris two of the last three years.

The two have never played against each other before.

This will also be Fonseca’s tournament debut at Roland Garros.

[12] Elena Rybakina vs Belinda Bencic

When Bencic returned to the tour at the end of last year, having given birth to daughter Bella earlier in the year, not many knew what to expect—but it was almost like she was never gone at all, as she reached the final in just her third tournament back (at a WTA 125K event) and, in her first major back, she made it all the way to the fourth round of the Australian Open before falling to Gauff.

A week later, she won her first title back, a WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi.

Already back inside the Top 40, the former No. 4 will take on 2022 Wimbledon champion Rybakina in the first round in Paris, and it’s been a good match-up for her in the past—the Swiss has won two of their three career meetings, including a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory in the semifinals of Abu Dhabi this year, en route to the title.

Bencic has already had six Top 20 wins this year, too…

[10] Paula Badosa vs Naomi Osaka

After a tough opening-round loss in Madrid, Osaka did something rare, going and playing a WTA 125K event in the second week of the WTA 1000 event—in Saint Malo, France—and she went all the way to the title, which was actually her first professional title on clay.

She didn’t stop there, either, continuing her winning streak into the fourth round of the WTA 1000 in Rome the next week, where she only fell to American Peyton Stearns in a third set tie-break.

Perhaps playing some of the best clay-court tennis of her career, the four-time major winner and former No. 1 will try to bring her best to Roland Garros, where she was a point away from beating Iga Swiatek in the second round last year—and Swiatek won the title.

Osaka has a tough first round, though, in former No. 2 Badosa, who had a fantastic start to the year—reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal in Melbourne—but who also missed almost the entire clay-court lead-up season with a back injury, reaching the quarterfinals in her first tournament back in Strasbourg this week.

The former Top 2 players have actually never clashed before.

[2] Carlos Alcaraz vs Kei Nishikori

Last but certainly not least, nobody’s had a better clay-court lead-up season than Alcaraz—he’s the only player on either tour, men’s or women’s, to win multiple 1000-level titles on clay this year (Monte Carlo and Rome), and he’s an incredible 15-1 on the surface, the only loss coming to Holger Rune in the Barcelona final.

The Spaniard is also the defending champion in Paris.

But the draw could have been a bit nicer to the world No. 2—he opens against former No. 4 Nishikori, whose best Grand Slam result is a final at the US Open in 2014, but who’s had plenty of deep runs on the terre battue, reaching the quarterfinals three separate times.

Alcaraz has a flawless 16-0 career record in first-round matches at majors, but could we be in for a surprise this time?

The two will be playing each other for the first time.