Return of Nadal and Halep
The US Open has traditionally been the last Grand Slam of the season, but Roland Garros has taken its place this year.
The coronavirus pandemic forced the organizers to postpone the competition from May to September, so as not to cancel them altogether.
Let it be unusual for tennis players to play on clay in the fall, but they will be able to play their titles and prize money.
Roland Garros should become an even bigger tournament than the US Open, which ended three weeks earlier.
Spectators will be allowed on the Parisian courts (although not more than a thousand people every day), the main stage is preceded by qualification, juniors and veterans will hold their competitions.
All this was simply not in New York.
But most importantly, many tennis stars who previously missed the tournament in the United States will come to the French capital.
First of all, the fans will be delighted with the return of Rafael Nadal.
The 12-time tournament winner could not miss his favorite Major, in which he would have to defend 2000 rating points as usual.
While its shape raises certain concerns.
The Spaniard did not play on hard, and on clay he reached only the quarterfinals of the tournament in Rome, where he lost to Argentine Diego Schwartzman.
Nadal has just one title left to catch up with Roger Federer in the number of majors.
The Swiss himself will not be able to stop him - he still does not play due to knee surgery.
Compared to the US Open, the men's grid will also be strengthened by Gael Monfils, Fabio Fognini, Stan Wawrinka, Kay Nishikori and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
Roland Garros will not do without losses, but for security reasons only Nick Kiryos starred this time.
Milos Raonic, Fernando Verdasco, Luca Pui and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga starred for other reasons.
In the women's tournament "Roland Garros" the main thing will be the return of Simona Halep.
The second racket of the world, seeded number one, recently won a clay tournament in the Italian capital and brought her winning streak to 14 matches in a row (the last defeat is dated January 30.
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If the Romanian manages to win her second title in Paris, she will lead the WTA rankings instead of Ashley Barty, who again chose to stay at home.
It is Halep who is considered the main favorite of the tournament, especially since there was again a shortage of strong athletes in the women's grid.
Japanese woman Naomi Osaka was injured after winning the US Open and did not come to Paris.
Worries the knee and Canadian Bianca Andreescu.
Taking into account Barty, three tennis players from the top eight of the world rankings will miss the tournament at once.
In addition to them, Swiss Belinda Benchich and Chinese Wang Qiang could also count on sowing, but they will not get to Paris either.
Rehabilitation of Djokovic
Novak Djokovic will be Nadal's main rival for the title.
The last major ended in failure for the first racket of the world - the Serb was disqualified from the US Open for hitting the ball to the line referee.
Now he will try to rehabilitate himself for this annoying case, which cost him another title.
Djokovic managed to quickly switch to the ground.
He has already won the Masters in Rome, surpassing Nadal's record of victories in this category - both have previously won 35 titles each.
The Serb's unbeaten streak in fights that lasted longer than one set has already reached 31 matches.
Additionally, Djokovic should be motivated by the dream to collect a career Grand Slam for the second time.
For this he lacks only one victory at Roland Garros.
The draw allows the Serb to at least reach the final, since both Nadal and Dominic Tim are in the bottom half of the bracket.
The fourth consecutive meeting of the Spaniard with the Austrian in the fight for the title will no longer be, and at best they will play in the semifinals, which will facilitate Djokovic's pursuit of the Musketeers' Cup.
The curse of Rublev and Medvedev
It's hard to believe, but neither Daniil Medvedev nor Andrei Rublev have won a single match in the main draw of Roland Garros.
Unlike Karen Khachanov, who always made it to at least the second week, and even made it to the quarterfinals last year, they were always eliminated in the first round.
Andrey may have an excuse for such statistics - because of injuries, he rarely competed in Paris at all.
This time he will play in the main clay tournament for the first time in three years.
For the first week, the 13th seeding number got a pretty comfortable draw.
Rublev will start the tournament with a meeting with American Sam Querry, and in the third round he will meet with Serb Dusan Lajovic or South African Kevin Anderson, of course, provided that both do not stumble earlier, like himself.
And in the fourth round, Medvedev may already be waiting for Rublev.
This time the fifth racket of the world managed to avoid a meeting with one of the owners of the court - in previous years he was sure to lose to them in the first round, even when he was the undisputed favorite.
This time Medvedev will open the tournament with a duel with the Hungarian Marton Fuchovic, whom he has invariably defeated before.
However, Medvedev has had almost no practice on the ground this year.
He only lost at the start of the tournament in Hamburg, and lost again to a French tennis player - this time it was Hugo Humbert.
Even if the Russian derby in the fourth round of Roland Garros takes place, then Rublev will be the favorite in it.
At the same tournament in Germany, he already reached the semifinals, leaving Roberto Bautista-Agut out of work in the semifinals, and is clearly not going to stop there.
Khachanov with the 15th seeded was in the same section with Djokovic.
This dramatically reduces his chances of re-entering the quarterfinals, but even without taking into account the draw it will be difficult for him to achieve this.
Karen with great difficulty defeated the German Jan-Lennard Struff in Hamburg, after which he took only one of his serve in the meeting with Lajovich.
This year he does not perform so well on clay, so the meeting with Novak can be considered a worthy result for the third racket of Russia.
Hard lot for Russian women
In the women's tournament, the Russian confrontation will begin from the first days.
Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who missed the US Open, will face each other in the opening round.
In the past, they showed decent results at Roland Garros, and Kuznetsova even won the Suzanne Lenglen Cup.
But now the prospects for both are very vague, judging by the latest results.
The season after the coronavirus pause is generally very bad for Russian girls.
None of them managed to reach the quarter-finals of the WTA tournaments, even the lowest category.
This situation in Rome could have been corrected by Daria Kasatkina - then she started with two confident victories and waged an equal fight with the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka until she twisted her leg.
By Roland Garros, she managed to recover from an injury, but the Russian woman was not lucky with the draw - already in the second round, another Belarusian tennis player Arina Sobolenko, who was seeded number eight, could become her rival.
However, it will be even harder for other Russian girls to start the tournament.
Varvara Gracheva will be opposed by the third racket of the tournament Elina Svitolina from Ukraine, and Lyudmila Samsonova will be opposed by the American Sofia Kenin, who has the fourth seeded.
Highly rated rivals also went to Margarita Gasparyan and Vitalia Dyachenko - one will have to feel the strength of the Belgian Eliza Mertens, the other will face off against the American Sloane Stevens from the United States.
Only Ekaterina Aleksandrova and Anna Blinkova can count on an easy start.
The first racket of Russia has the 27th seeded number, thanks to which she won the little-known Australian Maddison Inglis as an opponent.
Blinkova has to fight the winner of the qualification.
If successful, both Russians will meet each other in the next round, and then one of them will most likely have to play with Svitolina.