The 2025 French Open kicks off on Sunday, and we’re sure to see some fireworks in Paris as the world’s best players battle on the famed terre battue of Roland Garros to win the second Grand Slam of the year.
Many of the players on the WTA tour have said that the trophies are up for grabs every week, and it just comes down to who wins the crucial points or can rise to the occasion in the tough moments. Paris will be no exception, as each tour-level tournament on the clay swing has had a different champion, a testament to the depth of the field.
However, only one woman can be crowned the queen of Court Philippe-Chatrier. Will it be Iga Swiatek as she attempts to capture her fourth consecutive Roland Garros title; World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, hungry to lift a Grand Slam trophy somewhere other than her beloved hard courts; Jasmine Paolini, a two-time major finalist last year, including in Paris who just won in Rome; 2022 finalist and world No. 2 Coco Gauff, the runner-up in both Madrid and Rome; or will it be another player who comes out of the shadows in the City of Light?
The biggest question is if the red clay at Roland Garros can revive Swiatek's signature game, having won a whopping five titles at the tournament. The Pole hasn't won a tournament since the event last year, a shocking drought for the 2022 US Open champion. She is the No. 5 seed, having dropped out of the Top 2 for the first time since March 2022, and has a tough draw ahead of her if she wants to reclaim the Suzanne-Lenglen Cup. Her first round opponent is Czech Rebecca Sramkova, and will then face Wang Xinyu or 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu. What might come next is partially the (bad) luck of the draw, and partially what can happen when your seeding falls: Swiatek could then face No. 26 seed Marta Kostyuk, setting up a Round of 16 match with either No. 12 seed Elena Rybakina or rival No. 21 seed Jelena Ostapenko. If she gets through those earlier rounds and the seeds hold, Paolini, Sabalenka and Gauff will be formidable obstacles on the road to her sixth Roland Garros title.
In the same half of the draw is Paolini, the 29-year-old who launched her career into the stratosphere last year after reaching both the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finals—her previous best result was one run to the fourth round in 17 major appearances—could be poised to lift her maiden major trophy. The Italian lifted both the singles and doubles trophies in Rome, and seems to be in good spirits and great form, sitting at a career-high ranking of No. 4. However, she's likely to face reigning champion Swiatek in the quarterfinals, and the Pole has won all four of their previous meetings.
It's been a full decade since an American woman lifted the French Open trophy, and it may be time for someone to pick up the mantle right where Serena Williams left it. No one is more poised to do so than Gauff, the 2023 US Open champion who is currently at a career-high ranking of No. 2. She hasn't won a title during this clay swing, but she was the finalist in both Madrid and Rome, and made a run to the semifinals last year before being defeated by Swiatek. Roland Garros is also where she won the girls' junior title in 2018, and lifted the doubles trophy last year alongside Katerina Siniakova. An all-American matchup could await in the quarterfinals, where Gauff is projected to meet compatriot and No. 7 seed Madison Keys.
If Gauff falls to Keys, then we could be treated to a rematch of the 2025 Australian Open final with the two most recent Grand Slam winners battling for their first major title on clay. However, neither Keys nor Sabalenka has previouly been dominant in Paris—Sabalenka has only made it past the third round at Roland Garros twice, with a semifinal appearance in 2023 and a run to the quarterfinals in 2024, and Keys’ best results are a 2018 semifinal and 2019 quarterfinal showing.
And it's not as if Sabalenka's draw will be a walk in the park. Her potential fourth round opponent is No. 16 Amanda Anisimova, a Roland Garros semifinalist in 2019, who claimed the WTA 1000 title in Qatar earlier this year before reaching the semifinals in Charleston. But it doesn't calm down there, as she is projected to face No. 8 Zheng Qinwen in the quarterfinals. Zheng's best result at the French Open is a fourth round showing in 2022, but she did win Olympic gold on Court Philippe-Chatrier less than 10 months ago and reached the semifinals in Rome before falling to Gauff, so she can't be counted out.
No. 6 seed Mirra Andreeva and No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula are the youngest and oldest members of the Top 8, respectively, and they are sure to inject excitement into the competition. Andreeva made a splash last year in her second main draw appearance in Paris, reaching the semifinals where she lost to eventual finalist Paolini. She lifted the trophy at Indian Wells earlier this year and made runs to the quarterfinals in Madrid and Rome, so she could be poised for success.
Pegula's best showing at Roland Garros was a quarterfinal appearance in 2022 and she hasn't had the strongest European swing. However, she only dropped two sets en route to the Charleston title in April, and the American has now broken her quarterfinal curse at the majors, so Pegula is absolutely a contender.
And of course, there will be plenty of popcorn matches that don't feature the Top 5. Naomi Osaka and No. 10 Paula Badosa will face off in the first round, and the all-Aussie matchup of 2022 quarterfinalist Ajla Tomljanovic and young up-and-comer Maya Joint is sure to be fun.
