What does pre-Roland Garros form mean?

On the eve of the French Open there is still a number of big-name players honing their clay games at ATP and WTA tournaments in Europe.

World No.3 and French Open 2015 champion Stan Wawrinka is on track for a final showdown against world No.9 Kei Nishikori in Geneva.

A bit closer to Roland Garros, a trio of Grand Slam finalists (world No.6 Milos Raonic, world No.12 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and world No.13 Tomas Berdych) have reached the semifinals in Lyon.

Sam Stosur, the French Open runner-up in 2010, is making a deep run in Strasbourg, while in Nurnberg world No.20 Kiki Bertens is also into the final four.

With such high-profile names enjoying success at these clay events, surely it bodes well for their French Open hopes? Unfortunately for them, history suggests otherwise.

We trawled through the record books to look at the pre-tournament results of all the French Open men’s and women’s singles champions in the past 30 years – and the results were telling…. not a single one of them in that period won a title in the preceding week to their Grand Slam triumph.

The French Open is known as the most physically-demanding major, so why are these top players chasing a title this week? What is more important to their Roland Garros hopes: rest or match play?

Stosur, who took a last-minute wildcard into the Strasbourg event, told AAP this week that she wanted the extra matches before arriving in Paris.

“I did feel like the last couple of weeks I was playing pretty well but obviously not winning as much as you probably want to,” Stosur said.

“So that was the reason probably why I came here (to Strasbourg), not because I didn’t feel confident about my game.

“But you want to try and get those wins under your belt if you can.”

Wawrinka had a similar mindset when he took a wildcard into Geneva, where he is the defending champion.

“It will be important to play matches and spend time on the court,” Wawrinka explained.

The good news for the 32-year-old Swiss star is that he came close to breaking the trend last year, reaching the French Open semifinals after his title triumph in Geneva.

Bertens achieved the same result, making an unexpected run to the Paris semifinals after winning the 2016 Nurnberg title as a qualifier.

Could this be the year a French Open champion emerges from a lead-in title winner? Only time will tell.