Woodbridge: Nadal, Halep favourites for French

I’ve said all along that Rafael Nadal will be the man to beat at Roland Garros. He lost early in Rome, but I believe that that was a good thing (I was an advocate for him not playing there at all).

The fact that he got that loss out of the way will be a relief to him; he is not carrying that unbeaten story around. He now goes in to Roland Garros ready, and is playing better tennis than we have seen from him in over three years. Of course, a lot depends on his body and whether he is fit enough to get through those seven matches, but it will be really hard to stop him.

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A story that has changed so quickly is the positivity currently surrounding Novak. He made the final in Rome (but lost to one of the #NextGen), has signed a new clothing sponsor and hired a new coach. I still think there is a bit of a facade to that, and more work to be done to win tournaments this year.

That said, if there is one guy who can help him it is Andre Agassi. But hiring Andre will bring a lot of media focus, and that is going to use a lot of his energy.

In fact, it’s hard to pick a player that Rafa wouldn’t feel comfortable facing in the draw.

He wouldn’t want to take on Djokovic, but can’t do that before the semifinals anyway. Wawrinka and Thiem are the other two that have the ability to beat him.

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And what about Alexander Zverev? He’s never been beyond the third round of a Slam, and I’m not sure how well he’ll go here. It’s the first time he’s going into a major with people saying that he has a chance. It will be interesting to see how he handles that – it’s the next step of his tennis journey. He’s now a contender, but does he believe that, and can he maintain his performance? With expectation comes stress, and he must learn to cope with that.

Nick Kyrgios’ preparation has not been good enough to win this tournament. If he gets the right draw he can get towards the middle, but he probably doesn’t have enough clay court tennis in him to get to the back end of the tournament. Miles in the legs on clay are a necessity for winning a French Championships.

As for the women? Flip a coin.

The player with the pedigree and form is Halep. This is her time. She’s great on clay and has had a good lead-up. She’s had a bit of an injury, but that might actually help release some of the pressure she would put on herself. As strange as that sounds, an injury may act as a release valve for some of the pressure.

It’s going to be really fun to watch Kristina Mladenovic. There haven’t been many French players over the last 20 years that have been able to cope with the expectations of playing on Centre Court. If she does have a good tournament it will be very impressive, because she’s going to be under the microscope, and that could be suffocating for her.

Svitolina has had a terrific year and she’s flying under the radar. She’s won four tournaments and has got lots of match wins, and there is no substitute for that. Again, though, under pressure she can get a bit tight on the forehand and second serve and she has to overcome that.

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I have concerns for defending champion Garbine Muguruza. Every time she’s on the court she looks close to pulling out – there are recurrent injury issues and mental doubts. When you go into a big tournament you need to have an attitude of going in to win, not to defend. Muguruza has been defending for the last twelve months.

One player that is dynamic enough to go deep – and she did it last year – is Sam Stosur. She’s coming in to form and enjoys playing in Paris, with the field as wide open as it is some drama is sure to evolve.