The second Grand Slam of the year will begin on Sunday morning with Serena Williams headlining the field.  Roland Garros have adopted the early Sunday start for a number of years now.  Last year was the first one where they fully committed to the weekend start with many of the top players opening on day one and personally, I like it.  Serena laid down the gauntlet with her victory in Rome, but the likes of Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep and Ana Ivanovic have all shown some excellent form during this clay court season.  The draw has been kind to some and a bitch to others.  I’d love to know your thoughts so please vote in the poll and leave your thoughts in the comments section! Let’s take a look…

Fantasy Games: I have set up two leagues for the TFF Dream Team and Official Roland Garros fantasy games.  Everyone is welcome to join! For the TFF DreamTeam game click here to pick a team and then enter the password 061a43bea70c737a8ad38c50692a9a7e to join the Moo’s Tennis Blog league.  For the RG game, click here, pick your players and then enter the group number which is 8291 and the group password which is MZFR7. For the full details on both games, I posted about them HERE.

QUARTER 1: S.Williams (1) v M.Sharapova (7)

Serena Williams

The one striking dimension of this draw is that the two pre-draw favourites, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, are drawn to meet in the quarter-finals.  Given Sharapova’s head-to-head record against Serena, this is a lame draw for her; however it is worth noting that the pair were also drawn to meet in the quarter-finals of Roland Garros in 2012 when Sharapova was the number two seed and Serena number five.  Williams was heavily touted as the favourite, but Sharapova didn’t end up having to play Serena and she went on to win and complete the career Slam.

Serena will open her 2014 French Open campaign against Alize Lim and could meet the talented and dangerous, Garbine Muguruza in the second round. It’s a tough draw for Serena, which is made all the more challenging by the fact she could meet her sister, Venus Williams in the third round. The pair haven’t played since meeting in the semi-finals of Charleston last year when Serena cruised to victory against an ailing Venus. On clay, Venus has never really fully proven herself and just like last year, niggly injuries have halted her clay court season. In the first round, she faces Belinda Bencic. The 17-year-old has been sauntering up the rankings this year.  Her solid baseline game coupled with a mentality that sets her apart from other juniors, is going to make this a fascinating watch.

Roberta Vinci and Sabine Lisicki are the likely contenders to be vying to meet Serena in the last 16. A Serena v Sabine match would be thrilling, but on clay, it would be unlikely to have the same magnetising effect of their 4th round match from Wimbledon last year.  Lisicki had her best run in Madrid reaching the third round and she will do well to match that performance in Paris.  The grass is coming for Sabine though…

Sharapova shouldn’t face any problems in the first couple of rounds (famous last words). She will face a qualifier in round one and the first seed she could meet is Kaia Kanepi.  The Estonian player recently posted on her FB page that she is still struggling to get over a heel injury that has plagued her for quite some time. Dominika Cibulkova and Sam Stosur are both lurking in this section. Cibulkova, or Pome, as I have started to call her after her trademark celebrations, has yet to win a match on clay this year. This is partly down to two stinking draws in Madrid and Rome.  She drew Stosur in Madrid and could meet her nemesis again in the third round, assuming she can get that far. It’s a horrible match-up as I discussed here. Stosur’s form hasn’t exactly been the epitome of consistency and she will need to be on the ball from the first round as she plays Strasbourg finalist, Monica Puig.

Selected 1st Round Predictions: S.Williams d. Lim in 2 sets, Schmiedlova d. Zheng in 2 sets, V.Williams d. Bencic in 3 sets (can’t wait), Shvedova d. Davis in 3 sets, Barthel d. Knapp in 2 sets and Stosur d. Puig in 3 sets,

Moo’s Quarter-Final Prediction: S.Williams v Sharapova

QUARTER 2: A.Radwanska (3) v A.Kerber (8)

Agnieszka Radwanska

Judging the first two womens quarters, it’s hard to ignore the lopsidedness (is that a word? well, I just created one anyway). The second quarter, featuring Agnieszka Radwanska and Angelique Kerber as the highest seeds, offers some huge opportunities for a number of players to crack the semi-finals.  Radwanska opens her account in Paris against Rome quarter-finalist, Zhang Shuai. Radwanska has really impressed me during this clay court season with a series of solid performances on what she has always described as her weakest surface. The first seed she is projected to meet is Elena Vesnina, but a trio of tricky opponents, Francesca Schiavone, Christina McHale or Ajla Tomljanovic, could all quite easily make the third round.

Two players I had my eye on before the draw came out were Alize Cornet and Carla Suarez Navarro. I can’t deny I was a little gutted to see them land in the same section of the draw.  Rather ironically, Cornet’s form has rather fallen flat on the clay, her best surface.  She has struggled to post wins after taking a few weeks out after she won Katowice due to an injury.  CSN, on the other hand, has had a tremendous clay court season and should be feeling very confident.  CSN could face two qualifiers in her first two matches, meanwhile Cornet opens against the Australian wildcard, Ashleigh Barty.

Kerber is by far the weakest of the top eight seeds based on her recent woes with injury and form. She will play Katarzyna Piter in the first round.  In the second round she would play either Petra Cetkovska or Varvara Lepchenko. Both are characteristically erratic players, but with enough game to pull off an upset against a struggling Kerber. Cetkovska beat Kerber just two weeks ago in Rome. If Kerber falls early, this will open the door for the likes of Flavia Pennetta and Eugenie Bouchard.  Genie, who could win her first WTA title in Nurnberg this weekend, has another fine draw after she sailed into the semi-finals at the first Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne. There was a tweet to suggest Pennetta may have been struggling in practice with injury. It’s hard to gauge the accuracy of these rumours, but Bouchard will be fancying her chances of going deep once again.

Selected 1st Round Predictions: Radwanska d. Zhang in 2 sets (1 tight, 1 easy), Schiavone d. Tomljanovic in 2 tight sets, McHale d. Vesnina in 3 sets, Bouchard d. Peer in 2 sets, Lepchenko d. Cetkovska in 3 sets and Kerber d. Piter in 2 sets

Moo’s Quarter-Final Prediction: Radwanska v Bouchard

QUARTER 3: P.Kvitova (5) v S.Halep (4)

Ana Ivanovic

Zarina Diyas will be Petra Kvitova‘s first opponent at Roland Garros. Perhaps she will be a new name to many, but this 20-year-old, who reached the third round of the Australian Open, could be a very tricky match-up for Petra.  Despite reaching the semi-finals of Madrid, there won’t be many, if anyone, touting Petra as a potential champion this fortnight. Kvitova is projected to meet Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round. The former French Open champion has looked in fine form during this clay court season although she has endured some tough losses to CSN (Oeiras, F) and Radwanska (Madrid, R2).  If Kuznetsova prevails in the first round, she will meet the winner of a first round match between Bojana Jovanovski and Camila Giorgi, which promises to be entertaining.

Ana Ivanovic has been dealt an incredibly tough draw as she goes into Roland Garros, in my opinion, as one of the five favourites. She takes on rising star, Caroline Garcia, in one of the showcase first round matches. It’s tough on both and I was really hoping Garcia would avoid a seed. The Frenchwoman has the talent to threaten to Ivanovic, but I would take the Serb in that one with Garcia still proving to be a touch unreliable in terms of her match closing abilities.  Ivanovic’s route through the draw is unlikely to get any easier with Elina Svitolina and Lucie Safarova potential opponents in rounds two and three respectively.  I just cannot see Ivanovic going past the quarter-finals and I think a series of tough matches will eventually wear her down.

The weakest eighth of the draw is spearheaded by Simona Halep. No surprises that Sloane Stephens is also in here too.  Normally draws level themselves out, but Sloane has got her fair shame of comfortable passages in my opinion. In Paris, she opens against Peng Shuai, who has struggled with injuries in the singles this year.  Sloane, who lost to Julia Goerges in the first round of Strasbourg this week, is seeded to meet Ekaterina Makarova in the third round. The Russian player started the season strongly; however she has laboured somewhat during the clay court season, posting a 1-3 W-L record.

Since Halep made her charge up the rankings, her name and Roland Garros have been synonymous.  Many people have been tipping Halep to officially break through on the big stage in Paris.  Her lead-up form has been very respectable as she reached the final in Madrid.  Injuries have remained an issue this year with the world number four seemingly unable to perform consistently in back-to-back weeks. She opens against Alisa Kleybanova, which won’t be easy.  Halep has started some tournaments slow this year. If she can get through her first rounds unscathed, then she could go extremely deep in this tournament with some momentum behind her.

1st Round Predictions: Giorgi d. Jovanovski in 3 sets, Safarova d. Minella in 2 sets, Ivanovic d. Garcia in 2 tight sets, Hercog d. Cepelova in 2 sets and Halep d. Kleybanova in 3 sets

Moo’s Quarter-Final Prediction: Ivanovic v Halep

QUARTER 4: J.Jankovic (6) v Li Na (2)

Li Na

Roland Garros champion in 2011, Li Na will play Kristina Mladenovic in the first round.  Li reached the quarter-finals of both Madrid and Rome and has been remarkably consistent this year. Her first round opponent, Mladenovic, has promised plenty, but delivered up fairly little in 2014.  Her successes have come in the doubles. Some of Mladenovic’s best performances in 2013 came in the Slams so expect her to give Li an early test in front of her home crowd.

The other seeds in Li’s eighth are Andrea Petkovic, Caroline Wozniacki and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. This is the first time Petkovic has been seeded at a Grand Slam since the 2011 US Open and it’s a measure of how well she has done in her many comebacks from many injuries. Wozniacki has not been enjoying the most fruitful of times, both on and off the court. She takes on Yanina Wickmayer in the first round; Wozniacki won their first six matches, but Wickmayer turned the tables when they met in Doha earlier this year. Pavlyuchenkova can lose to anyone these days, but she is also capable of knocking out quality players. Pavs had a great run here in 2011 and has sizeable chances to make the last 16 at least.

Jelena Jankovic and Sara Errani, who met in the semi-finals of Rome last week, are the highest seeds in the top half of the fourth quarter. Errani went on to make the final, but suffered a worrying leg injury. Her fitness is currently unknown, but a first round tie with Madison Keys will soon show up whether she is 100% or not.  Errani’s route through to the 4th round though would remain relatively clear with the seed in her section, Kirsten Flipkens, displaying disappointing recent form.  Jankovic has always done well at Roland Garros and I would fancy that the likes of Sorana Cirstea, Sharon Fichman and Kurumi Nara are not going to get in her way of at least reaching the last 16.

1st Round Predictions: Jankovic d. Fichman in 2 sets, Wozniacki d. Wickmayer in 3 sets, Pavlyuchenkova d. Date-Krumm in 2 sets, Petkovic d. Doi in 2 sets and Li d. Mladenovic in 2 tight sets

Moo’s Quarter-Final Prediction: Jankovic v Li

Moo’s Final Prediction: S.Williams d. Halep

I’ve gone safe with Serena although I nearly went for Sharapova.  If she is fully fit, Serena will be the clear favourite.  The question mark will crop up though whether she can stay fit and healthy for seven matches.  The bottom half is pretty wide open, but the draw looks great for Halep.  I also like JJ’s chances although this year, she has been playing well, but not quite going that final step.

Full predictions to follow on Saturday along with the mens preview…