The French Open is the most unpredictable of the four Grand Slam events on the women’s calendar, with seven different winners in the last eight competitions.
The two-week tournament marks the culmination of a gruelling clay-court season and many players believe it is the toughest Grand Slam to win because of the mental and physical challenges the red surface throws up.
Serena Williams is the favourite for the tournament as she looks to win her third consecutive Grand Slam having triumphed at the US Open and in Australia. When she plays at her highest level and serves as only she can, no player has the game to match her.
The American has been in stunning form since the beginning of 2012 and amazingly has lost only 15 competitive matches in that 40-month period.
One would assume with these statistics that she is a near certainty to win the tournament but this is far from the case. For starters, we are not sure of the extent of the elbow injury she suffered in Rome last week. She has also always struggled at the French Open.
Serena has won the competition only twice, as opposed to every other Grand Slam event which she has won at least four times.
Indeed, apart from her 2013 triumph, she has not even reached the semi-finals in Roland Garros since 2004 and last year suffered her worst loss at a Slam against Garbiñe Muguruza, claiming only four games. She is often at her most vulnerable in the first week of Grand Slams.
Partly as a result of Serena being selective in choosing the tournaments and matches she plays, all four members of the current top four have won big titles this year.
World number three Simona Halep won in Indian Wells; number two Petra Kvitova was champion in Madrid where she beat Serena – the only player to do so this year; while defending champion Maria Sharapova was victorious in Rome last week.
None of them have been playing consistently good tennis on a regular basis though, which makes predicting a winner difficult.
Defending champion Sharapova showed a timely return to form when winning her first tournament this year beating Carla Suarez Navarro in Rome.
This victory came after a spell of mixed form and results which included loses against Flavia Pennetta and Daria Gavrilova in Indian Wells and Madrid. Significantly, the victory also guarantees her a second seeding meaning she cannot face Serena until the final.
She has an awful record against the American having lost 17 of their 19 encounters and has not beaten her since 2004. For the Russian to beat Williams, she will have to play at the very peak of her powers and hope that Serena suffers a serious off-day.
Third seed and last year’s runner-up Simona Halep will also consider herself a strong contender for the title. However, her clay form has been mixed of late after a first round exit in Madrid to Alize Cornet followed by a semi-final loss to Carla Suarez Navarro in Rome.
Her serve can let her down at crucial times and she does not have the power which other top players possess. She does, however, have excellent movement, sense of anticipation and variety of shot.
Halep has a poor record against Sharapova who she has never beaten in six attempts, and Williams whom she has only beaten once in six matches.
Wimbledon Champion Petra Kvitova has played some excellent tennis at times, particularly in Madrid, where she easily beat an off-form Serena with a big serving and big hitting display on her way to winning the title.
Again however, she has proved inconsistent this spring losing her opening match in Stuttgart to Madison Brengle and to Suarez Navarro in Rome. Although she suffers at times from poor movement, she is one of the few players who has the power to match Serena and had an excellent lefty serve.
The Czech, however, is more likely to retain her Wimbledon title than to triumph in Paris.
Carla Suarez Navarro is a very consistent player and is enjoying her best year so far reaching the quarter-finals at every tournament she has entered this year, bar the Australian Open.
She pushed Sharapova in a three set final in Rome last week and may be a dark horse.
Caroline Wozniacki, Andrea Petkovic, Ana Ivanovic and Eugenie Bouchard will all be looking for strong performances in the competition although I do not think any of them are capable of winning the tournament.
Wozniacki has had some good wins in the clay court season against Suarez Navarro, Halep and Agniszka Radwanska but has also had some poor losses and does not have the consistency to win the tournament. Clay is Petkovic’s best surface but again she does not have the ability to win the seven matches required to triumph.
Bouchard and Ivanovic have underperformed in the opening months of the season, winning only 18 matches and reaching three quarter-finals (or better) between them so far in 2015.
Bouchard is struggling to build on her excellent performances last year where she reached the semi-finals of the French Open and the final at Wimbledon. It appears to be a similar fate to that suffered by Ivanovic in the aftermath of her French Open title win in 2008.
Victoria Azarenka will not be seeded high as a result of her injury problems over the last year but none of the top players will want to face her early in the tournament.
While the list of possible contenders is lengthy given the unpredictable nature of the competition, Serena Williams is still the safest bet to retain her title.
