There is just one week left before the French Open gets underway in Paris and there will be some burning questions asked as the world’s best players fight it out for the second Grand Slam title of the year.
Men’s reigning champion Rafael Nadal has struggled for form this season and as a result has dropped to seventh in the rankings, meaning he could face world number one Novak Djokovic as early as the quarter-finals.
The Serb will be out to finally complete his Grand Slam set, having fallen foul of Nadal in the last three years, including in the 2012 and 2014 finals on either side of a five-set semi-final thriller in 2013.
And despite having to withdraw from Rome recently due to an elbow injury, world number one Serena Williams will once again start favourite to win a third French Open title. She will face some competition from the other top players including defending champion Maria Sharapova, as well as last year’s runner-up Simona Halep and reigning Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
Williams and Sharapova both have the potential to become a three-time champion at Roland Garros, both women having won two titles each. This will be the second consecutive Grand Slam tournament in which they are the top two seeds, meaning the two cannot meet each other until the final.
Here are just some of the questions that will be asked in the lead-up to the second Grand Slam tournament of 2015.
1. Can Novak Djokovic finally win the French Open this year?
The pressure will be on world number one Novak Djokovic to finally complete his Grand Slam set and this year’s French Open will provide his best possible chance for him to finally achieve it.
The Djoker will be hoping that this year is fourth time lucky, and his impressive start to this season, in which he won five titles including a fifth Australian Open title, will see him start favourite ahead of Nadal to finally reign at Roland Garros.
However, he may have to face the five-time reigning champion as early as the quarter-finals, and it could spell doom for the Serb as six of the Spaniard’s nine French Open titles have come at his expense, twice in finals.
Perhaps this will finally the year where Novak Djokovic can shake that monkey off his back and win in Paris for the first time. But of course, that famous man from Mallorca will be out to prevent that from happening once again…
2. Or will Rafael Nadal bounce back and prove everyone wrong with a tenth title?
Nine-time champion Nadal will have his lowest ever seeding at a Grand Slam tournament, with his unusually poor European clay court swing, during which he failed to capture any of Monte Carlo, Madrid, Barcelona or Rome for the first time since 2004, seeing him drop to seventh in the world rankings.
It could be a worrying sign that his invincibility on clay could be coming to an end, however the French Open should still continue to bring the best out of the Spaniard. He has only ever lost once at the tournament since debuting in 2005.
Even last year, when Nadal was world number one, the Spaniard was not considered the outright favourite to win. That tag went to Novak Djokovic, who beat him in the Rome Masters final and had also ended his eight-year stranglehold at the Monte Carlo Masters in 2013.
But still, Nadal proved too good for Djokovic in the final by way of a four-set victory, despite losing the first set in a championship match for the first time since 2006 against Roger Federer.
Despite failing to fire in 2015, the nine-time French Open champion will be out to prove that he is anything but a spent force and claim an unprecedented tenth title at Roland Garros. Or will his mass achievements finally start to catch up with him?
3. How will Nick Kyrgios go in his first Grand Slam as a seeded player?
Following an injury-ravaged couple of months after his run to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, Australia’s Nick Kyrgios has done enough to earn himself a seeding at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his fledgling career.
Earlier this month he reached his first career final in Estoril before going down to Richard Gasquet in straight sets. He then followed that up by beating Roger Federer in Madrid, before losing his opening match in Rome last week.
His current ranking of 30 means he will be thrown into the paths of any of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Andy Murray, some of the names that loom as third-round opponents for Kyrgios.
Already Kyrgios has shown that he isn’t afraid of matching it against the world’s best. On top of his win over Federer in Madrid, he also claimed the famous scalp of then-world number one Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon last July as well.
The only other seeded Australians in the draw are that of Bernard Tomic and Samantha Stosur, but, like Kyrgios, their lowly rankings will see them thrown at the mercy of some of the top players in the early rounds.
4. Can Serena Williams hit 20, and extend her lead at the top of the rankings?
World number one Serena Williams’ victory at the Australian Open earlier this year brought her to within one Grand Slam title of the magical 20 milestone.
She had started this season on fire until she was brought undone by eventual champion Petra Kvitova in Madrid earlier this month, while she was forced to withdraw from Rome mid-tournament due to an elbow injury.
Her withdrawal from the latter event, where she was the two-time defending champion, isn’t expected to affect her favouritism status at what is historically her least successful Grand Slam tournament, having won just twice in 2002 and 2013.
Williams has only a second round appearance to defend this year, which means that she can continue to build her unassailable lead at the top of the rankings and go a long way towards finishing world number one for the third straight season.
That being said, her closest rival Maria Sharapova cannot earn any fresh rankings points as she is defending maximum points, and so this is the chance for Williams to further cement herself as the best tennis player mankind has ever produced.
5. Or will Maria Sharapova successfully defend her title?
Not since Justine Henin claimed the last of her four French Open titles in 2007 has a woman successfully retained the title at Roland Garros, and that is the task Maria Sharapova faces if she is to reign in Paris again in 2015.
The Russian claimed the recently-concluded Rome Masters last week, defeating Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro in three sets in the final. That has seen her reclaim the world number two ranking ahead of Romania’s Simona Halep.
It also means that she won’t have to face her career nemesis Serena Williams, against whom she has lost the last 16 matches and could trail by a massive margin in terms of rankings points by the end of the tournament, until the final.
Last year the Russian would have had to face Williams in the quarter-finals, but, as was also the case in 2012, the American’s early exit cleared the path for her to claim a second French Open title after her first win two years earlier completed a Career Grand Slam.
Once again Sharapova will be one of the names to watch if she makes another expected deep run into the latter rounds in Paris.
6. Can Eugenie Bouchard, Ana Ivanovic and Agnieszka Radwanska turn their seasons around?
Three players who have struggled for form this season are Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard, former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic and former Wimbledon finalist Agnieszka Radwanska.
Bouchard and Ivanovic, in particular, have both underperformed in the first four months of the season, winning only 18 matches and reaching three quarter-finals (or better) between them so far in 2015.
The Canadian appears to be struggling to live up to the expectations of a top ten player, which is a bit understandable given she is only 21. It was the same fate suffered by Ivanovic in the aftermath of her French Open title win in 2008.
The 21-year-old must defend a semi-final appearance from last year, as well as runners-up points at Wimbledon in July. Early losses at both tournaments could see her drop swiftly down the rankings, which would be very sad for a player who has become very popular on and off the court over the last twelve months.
Ivanovic has also struggled to replicate her good form from last year, dropping her opening match in three tournaments this year including at the Australian Open where she was a quarter-finalist in 2014. Most recently, she lost a thrilling three-set match against adopted Australian Daria Gavrilova in a final set tiebreak in Rome.
Radwanska, meanwhile, has dropped to 14th in the world after her own poor start to the season and late last month decided to end her coaching arrangement with Martina Navratilova in response.
This is her lowest world ranking since mid-2011 and it means she could face one of Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep or Petra Kvitova before the quarter-finals.
It now remains to be seen whether these three players can turn their fortunes around at Roland Garros. However, on the basis of their poor seasons so far, it appears very unlikely.
7. Can Simona Halep go one better in 2015?
One player who will be very hungry to win her maiden Grand Slam title is last year’s runner-up, and world number three, Simona Halep.
The Romanian has continued to impress in 2015, reaching the quarter-finals of the Australian Open for a second straight year and winning one of the biggest non-Grand Slam titles of the year at Indian Wells in March.
However, her title credentials have come into question recently following a first round exit in Madrid and a semi-final loss to Carla Suarez Navarro in Rome, both of which have seen her drop to third in the world rankings.
It means she will have to face one of Serena Williams or Maria Sharapova, who defeated her in a thrilling three-set final last year, in the semi-finals. If she makes it this far, and ends up facing either player, then this is when her Grand Slam credentials will be well and truly put to the test.
She has already failed multiple times over the last twelve months; apart from losing the final to Sharapova last year, she also lost in the semi-finals at Wimbledon to Eugenie Bouchard, crashed out early at the US Open and this year was upset by Ekaterina Makarova in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
As with Williams and Sharapova, Halep will be one of the players that many expect will feature at the tail end of the tournament. Whether she can break through for a maiden Grand Slam title will be another question in itself.
These are just some of the questions that will be asked as the countdown to the French Open continues. Will the big names be there when it matters most? Who will win the men’s and women’s titles in 2015? And can Novak Djokovic finally get the monkey off his back and complete his Grand Slam set?
All that is set to be answered in an interesting and intriguing two weeks of tennis starting next week. A full preview of the men’s and women’s contenders will be provided later this week.
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