EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsThe vibes are odd as the tennis caravan reaches Roland Garros. Players are considering future Slam boycotts over prize money complaints, and injuries are impacting the player pool: Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka has been dealing with worrisome issues on the women's side, while seven-time Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz is out for at least the next two Slams with a wrist injury. (A couple of other potential men's contenders, Arthur Fils and Lorenzo Musetti, are also out with injury.)Jannik Sinner comes to Paris as a significant title favorite over the rest of the field combined, having won 29 matches in a row, 26 in straight sets. The last player not named Alcaraz to beat him on clay was Stefanos Tsitsipas more than two years ago.Even if we don't end up with much intrigue in the men's final two Sundays from now -- and even if Sinner plows his way through seven matches with minimal drama (something that rarely happens, even with the best players) -- a two-week tournament is a journey in itself. The bottom half of the men's draw is a fascinating mix of steely veterans (Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev) and thrilling young up-and-comers. Meanwhile, the depth of the women's tour has paid off quite a bit in recent Slams, and we should be in for quite a few big-name matchups starting early in the first week.Vibes aside, the French Open should be awfully fun. It always is. Let's talk about 20 players who could define the fortnight.The favoritesJannik SinnerDraftKings odds: -310First potential top-10 opponent: No. 5 Ben Shelton or No. 9 Alexander Bublik (quarterfinals)The past 12 months of the Sinner-Alcaraz rivalry has packed in quite a few reversals and plot twists, from Alcaraz's amazing comeback in the 2025 French Open final, to Sinner's turning of the tables at Wimbledon, to Alcaraz's ensuing surge, to Sinner's response. After a brief wobble in hard-court season -- he lost to Djokovic despite a 2-sets-to-1 advantage in the Australian Open semifinals, then fell to Jakub Mensik in the Doha quarterfinals -- Sinner was already reestablishing himself as the more dominant player this spring before Alcaraz got hurt. Now he's on an all-time run.Sinner dropped only three sets in three clay-court tournaments this spring, rolling to titles in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, becoming the first Italian player to win Rome in 50 years and becoming only the second player (and by far the youngest) to have won every 1000-level event in his career.At this point, Sinner appears to have only one vulnerability left: five-setters. He's lost seven of his past eight such matches and hasn't won one since the 2024 Australian Open final against Daniil Medvedev. That could offer hope for anyone capable of redlining for a few hours and testing his limits. But it's been a victory just taking one set off him of late, much less three. He's as significant a favorite here as you'll ever see in a 128-man tournament.Iga SwiatekDraftKings odds: +250First potential top-10 opponent: No. 7 Elina Svitolina (quarterfinals)Heading into last year's French Open, Swiatek was on a Rafa Nadal-level pace for titles at Roland Garros; she had won four of them before her 24th birthday. But she fell in a 6-0 third set against Sabalenka in the semifinals, and it continued a strange run of vulnerability. After going 63-5 on clay from 2022 to 2024, she's just 17-7 since. She briefly found fifth gear in Rome, dropping just six total games in blowouts of Naomi Osaka and Jessica Pegula, but she tripped up in three sets against Svitolina in the semis. She's reached only one final on any surface this year, and after setting a torrid early pace, she's won only one of her past seven Slams.Granted, that lone Slam title was at Wimbledon last year, when she dropped just two games in her last two matches. Of the past 13 sets she's won, 10 were of either the 6-0, 6-1 or 6-2 variety. Her past six losses have all come in three-setters, too -- she's either winning blowouts or losing 50-50 matches, and that's typically a sign that you aren't too far away from your best level.Of course, with the draw at hand, she'll have to be very close to her best: She could face 29-seed (and 2017 French Open champion) Jelena Ostapenko, against whom she's 0-6 all time, in the third round, plus smoking-hot 15-seed Marta Kostyuk in the fourth and 7-seed Svitolina, against whom she just lost, in the quarters. Her draw is not for players with wobbly confidence.Aryna SabalenkaDraftKings odds: +275First potential top-10 opponent: No. 9 Victoria Mboko (quarterfinals)She's reached the finals of seven of her past nine Slams and the semis of 12 of 13. She won the "Sunshine Double" this year (Indian Wells and Miami), and with Swiatek's clay-court dominance waning a bit, it felt like she was charging toward a likely French Open title not too long ago. But then she lost to Hailey Baptiste in Madrid and Sorana Cirstea in Rome and revealed that she's been dealing with lower back and hip issues that limited her rotation a bit. (Rotation: just a little important for tennis players.)If she's anywhere close to 100%, then the 2025 French Open finalist has a manageable draw and as good a chance at anyone of winning seven matches. (Honestly, with her draw, she should at least reach the fourth round without full mobility.) For as much as she's dominated the tour over the past couple of years, she's still searching for her first Slam title on a natural surface -- all four of her titles were on hard courts -- but she's great on all surfaces when healthy.Elena RybakinaDraftKings odds: +600First potential top-10 opponent: No. 8 Mirra Andreeva (quarterfinals)No one in women's tennis has won more matches than Rybakina (30-7) in 2026. After more than a year of confusing struggles in Slams, she won her second major by taking down Sabalenka to win the Australian Open in February. Clay is probably her worst -- or perhaps least awesome -- surface, but she still won the title in Stuttgart and is 9-2 in this year's clay-court swing and 7-2 the past two years at Roland Garros.Rybakina's draw isn't easy: She could face former French Open finalist Jasmine Paolini in the fourth round, then either Andreeva or Karolina Muchova in the quarters. But she thumped all three of those players in straight sets in their last meetings, and two of the three were on clay. She has to be considered a favorite to go all the way in Paris.Coco GauffDraftKings odds: +650First potential top-10 opponent: No. 6 Amanda Anisimova (quarterfinals)The defending French Open champion is the fourth player on the favorites list, but she has to like her chances of making another run in Paris. She's reached at least the quarterfinals at Roland Garros for five straight years, and two of her three Slam final appearances have been there as well. Clay is a grinder's surface, and no one grinds like Gauff.After major serve problems in 2025, Gauff's serve remains a work in progress. She's landing it more often -- her first-serve percentage has improved from 61.6% to 64.9%, and her double-fault rate has fallen from 10.0% to 8.3% -- but it's doing less damage: She's actually winning fewer service points (57.4%) and holding less (65.7%) than before. Granted, she remains elite in the returns department, and she's winning 83% of tiebreakers this year. She's still hard to knock out, and if she ever rediscovers the serve that allowed her to hold 73% of the time in 2023 and 2024, she could become the most well-rounded player in the world.Only need a few breaksMirra AndreevaDraftKings odds: +900First potential top-10 opponent: No. 10 Karolina Muchova (fourth round)Since her surge to the French Open semifinals two years ago, it's felt like only a matter of time until Andreeva -- who recently turned 19, by the way -- would break through with a Slam title. But after winning the titles in Dubai and Indian Wells early in 2025, an upset loss to Lois Boisson in the French Open quarterfinals threw her into the first funk of her career. She won only nine of her past 18 matches of the season, then lost four of seven in another frustrating stretch in February and March.Clay season has offered rejuvenation. Andreeva is 15-3 on the surface this year with a win over Swiatek, and she's 14-1 against players outside the top five. Landing in the same quarter as Rybakina and Muchova wasn't particularly kind, but a confident Andreeva is capable of a huge run.Alexander ZverevDraftKings odds: +1200First potential top-10 opponent: No. 7 Taylor Fritz (quarterfinals)We should be talking about Zverev as a legit contender. He's the No. 2 seed, he's reached four French Open semifinals and one final, and he's won 17 of his past 20 matches on clay against players who aren't Sinner. With Djokovic needing to shake off epic rust and facing an epic draw, Zverev is the most likely player to reach the final from the bottom half of the bracket. That would put him only one upset away from his shaking off the "best player to never win a Slam" label.So why does he still feel like a long shot? Because he's lost 14 straight sets to Sinner, and nearly half of them (six in all) were decided by scores of 6-0, 6-1 or 6-2. Zverev won four straight against Sinner early in the Italian's career, but the last win came in August 2023; once Sinner passed him, he lapped him for good measure.Still, Zverev is 28-4 this year against players other than Sinner or Alcaraz. If Sinner somehow slips up, this could be Zverev's moment. (Then again, last spring he had a moment where he could have moved to No. 1 in the world for the first time and instead lost six of 11 matches. He has to overcome both Sinner and His Moments.)Novak DjokovicDraftKings odds: +1300First potential top-10 opponent: No. 8 Alex de Minaur (quarterfinals)Remember this guy? The three-time French Open winner and seven-time finalist? The guy who's 102-9 all time at the French Open against guys not named Rafael Nadal? The guy who, despite a diminished overall schedule and despite having turned 39 years old on Friday, still has the brain and ability to play his way into form and has reached five straight (and 12 of 14) Slam semifinals? You think he might be a contender in an Alcaraz-less universe?Djokovic is really testing us this time. In best-of-five environments, he's remained the surest thing in the field besides Sinner and Alcaraz, and he beat Sinner (and took a set from Alcaraz) just months ago in Melbourne. But since the Aussie Open, he's played just four matches, losing two. He barely got past Kamil Majchrzak and Aleksandar Kovacevic and lost to Jack Draper at Indian Wells, then he lost his only clay-court match of the season, to qualifier Dino Prizmic, in Rome. Playing his way into form might be difficult, too: He faces big-serving Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the first round and might have to play teenage hotshot Joao Fonseca in the third round and two-time French Open finalist Casper Ruud in the fourth. There is some particularly high degree of difficulty this time.Elina SvitolinaDraftKings odds: +1500First potential top-10 opponent: No. 3 Swiatek (quarterfinals)In the years before she took maternity leave in 2022-23, Svitolina was about the steadiest player in the world. She reached eight Slam quarterfinals and two semis, she won four 1000-level titles in 2017-18 alone and she won at least one title all but one year between 2013 and 2021. Her WTA ranking peaked at third in 2017.While others have struggled to reach the same heights after motherhood, however, you could almost suggest that Svitolina's ceiling has gotten higher. She doesn't play as many tournaments overall, but she's reached another six Slam quarterfinals (and two more semifinals) in just 12 tries since her return, and in 2026, her age-31 season, she's already reached the Australian Open semifinals and two 1000-level finals. Her run to the Rome title was incredible: She beat Rybakina, Swiatek and Gauff, back-to-back-to-back. She's holding serve more than ever before, and she can ramp up the aggression in a way that we rarely saw in the 2010s. Reaching another semifinal in Paris might require her to beat No. 11 Belinda Bencic in the fourth round and Swiatek in the quarters, but her confidence levels are damn near off the charts.Marta KostyukDraftKings odds: +2500First potential top-10 opponent: No. 3 Swiatek (fourth round)The draw gods weren't incredibly kind to the 23-year-old Kostyuk earlier this season: After losing to Sabalenka in the finals in Brisbane in January, she drew (and lost to) Rybakina in the round of 32 in Indian Wells and Miami. But that evidently just allowed her to get some rest and gear up for clay-court season.Kostyuk is 11-0 on clay this season. She rolled to the title in Rouen in April, then used that momentum to make a huge run in Madrid, beating three top-15 opponents -- Pegula, Linda Noskova and Andreeva -- in straight sets to take the title. She's up to a career-best 15th in the WTA rankings, and she's increasingly figured out how to harness the athleticism that made her a junior star in the late-2010s. She might be in the toughest quarter of the draw, with Svitolina and Swiatek, among others, standing between her and a first semifinal run. But she's pretty tough herself at this point.Others: Casper Ruud (+2800), Victoria Mboko (+4000), Daniil Medvedev (+5000)The youngstersRafael JodarDraftKings odds: +2500First potential top-10 opponent: No. 7 Taylor Fritz (third round)The 19-year-old former Virginia Cavalier has stormed onto the scene in 2026: He began the year ranked 165th and has charged to 29th in clay-court season, reaching the semifinals in Barcelona and the quarterfinals in Madrid (where he lost a fun, competitive match against Sinner) and Rome. He's 15-3 on clay, and his three-set win over fellow teenager Joao Fonseca in Madrid was one of the most entertaining, shotmaking matches of the year. His draw is kind in that he wouldn't play a seeded player until the third round (and that's a rusty Fritz), but we'll see how he manages the possible rigors of a run of best-of-five matches. Regardless, he's likely to be on preview lists like this for years to come.Joao FonsecaDraftKings odds: +6000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 3 Djokovic (third round)Last year's Next Big Thing is still looking for a breakthrough. After a frustrating start to the year, with three losses in his first four matches, he's dealt with poor draw luck, losing to Sinner in the round of 16 at Indian Wells, to Alcaraz in the round of 64 in Miami, to Zverev (in three sets) in the quarterfinals in Monte Carlo and to Ben Shelton (in three sets) in the quarterfinals in Munich. It's fair to wonder about his confidence after a recent three-set loss to Hamad Medjedovic in Rome, but he's still a ridiculous shotmaker, and a Fonseca-Djokovic third-rounder would be appointment viewing.Learner TienDraftKings odds: +10000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 10 Flavio CobolliThe 20-year-old Californian enjoyed a star turn with a pair of great Australian Open performances in 2025 and 2026, but his progress on clay has been a little slower. After losing two of his first three matches on clay this year, however, he picked up the pace: After a couple of wins in Rome (including one over Alexander Bublik, the No. 9 seed in Paris), he won last week's 250-level event in Geneva, beating Tsitsipas, Alex Michelsen and Bublik again before outlasting Mariano Navone in the finals. His serve has improved in 2026, and his increased patience has produced clay-court progress.Others: Jakub Mensik (+10000), Alexander Blockx (+12000)They love Roland GarrosZheng QinwenDraftKings odds: +4000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 6 Amanda Anisimova (fourth round)After missing five months with an elbow injury, Zheng -- who beat Swiatek in straight sets on the way to Olympic gold at Roland Garros in 2024 -- has been decent since her return. She took Rybakina to three sets in Doha and Madrid, beat Madison Keys in Miami and went the distance before falling to Ostapenko in Rome. As an unseeded player, she could have drawn anyone, but her draw gave her potential matchups against No. 23 Elise Mertens in the second round and No. 12 Linda Linda Noskova in the third. That's hard, but it could be harder, and she'll have a chance to play a few matches if she plays well.Karolina MuchovaDraftKings odds: +4000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 8 Andreeva (fourth round)A shotmaker's shotmaker, Muchova is a threat to reach the final in any event she enters (as she did at the French Open in 2023), and she's a threat to lose early in any event (as she did at the French Open in 2025). She's an excellent 22-6 in 2026, and she's beaten Gauff, Rybakina and Svitolina, among others. But she's also lost matches by scores of 6-2 6-0 (to Swiatek), 6-1 6-1 (to Gauff) and 6-3 6-2 (to Anastasia Potapova).Tommy PaulDraftKings odds: +10000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 3 Djokovic (fourth round)With Taylor Fritz battling knee issues and playing just one clay-court match this spring, and with Ben Shelton having lost three of his past four matches, you could make the case that Paul, a 2025 French Open quarterfinalist (and four-time Slam quarterfinalist for his career), is the most likely American male to make a run. He might have to beat Casper Ruud in the third round and Djokovic in the fourth, but he heads to Paris having won the Houston clay-court tournament and having reached the finals in Hamburg.Stan Wawrinka and Gael MonfilsDraftKings odds: +20000 and +30000, respectivelyFirst potential top-10 opponent: Wawrinka: No. 2 Zverev (fourth round); Monfils: No. 7 Medvedev (third round)It's the last French Open fortnight for a pair of beloved veterans, and both of them can still provide moments of extremely high quality. The 41-year-old Wawrinka, a two-time finalist (and 2015 champion), can still knock the crap out of a tennis ball; he took Fritz to four sets in the Australian Open and took three other top-30 opponents the distance this year as well.The 39-year-old Monfils, meanwhile, has reached the French Open quarterfinals four times and the semis once. He's the king of drama -- he's 12-4 all-time in French Open five-setters -- and while he's only 3-6 on tour this year, he went the distance with Felix Auger Aliassime (the No. 4 seed at the French Open) at Indian Wells and beat Tallon Griekspoor (No. 29) in Monte Carlo. Neither will win this tournament, but both will be main characters in Week 1.Others: Barbora Krejcikova (2021 champion, +5000), Jasmine Paolini (2024 finalist, +6000), Madison Keys (2018 semifinalist, +6000), Jelena Ostapenko (2017 champion, +8000), Stefanos Tsitsipas (2021 finalist, +10000), Alexander Bublik (2025 quarterfinalist, +10000), Frances Tiafoe (2025 quarterfinalist, +13000), Maria Sakkari (2021 semifinalist, +15000), Sofia Kenin (2020 finalist, +150000), Lois Boisson (2025 semifinalist, +15000), Donna Vekic (2024 Olympic silver medalist, +20000), Daria Kasatkina (2022 semifinalist, +20000), Marin Cilic (2022 semifinalist, +30000), Beatriz Haddad Maia (2023 semifinalist, +30000), Sloane Stephens (2018 finalist)Other well-positioned AmericansAmanda AnisimovaDraftKings odds: +4000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 4 Gauff (quarterfinals)After an incredible 2025 season, the 24-year-old (and two-time Slam finalist) hasn't enjoyed 2026 quite as much. She still reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and the semis in Dubai, but she hasn't played a clay-court match this year due to a wrist injury suffered in Miami. She's played just 17 matches on the year, winning 11. If she's fit, she could easily make a run -- she made her first big breakthrough in Paris, after all, reaching the semis in 2019 -- but it's fair to wonder about her form at the moment.Jessica PegulaDraftKings odds: +5000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 9 Mboko (fourth round)Somehow Pegula is flying under the radar from an odds perspective despite being 28-6 for the year and 9-2 on clay, with losses only to Kostyuk in Madrid and Swiatek in Rome. With such blistering and precise groundstrokes, Pegula has always fared better on hard courts than natural surfaces, but she did make the quarterfinals here in 2022, and she seems to be figuring out ways to grow even steadier and more dangerous into her 30s. If Sabalenka were to trip up early, either Pegula or Mboko might become the favorite in the top quarter of the draw.Ben SheltonDraftKings odds: +10000First potential top-10 opponent: No. 1 Sinner (quarterfinals)He's just 4-3 all time at the French Open, and after enjoying what seemed like a nice clay breakthrough by winning the Munich title, he turned around and lost three of his next four. But a healthy and in-form Shelton is a heavy load on any surface, and a semi-friendly draw could allow him to generate some momentum before potentially facing Sinner in the quarters.Others: Iva Jovic (+10000), Emma Navarro (+10000), Taylor Fritz (+10000), Hailey Baptiste (+20000)
