Matipa Ruzive: Hi everyone and welcome back to Everyone Watches Women's Tennis, a podcast that is solely focused on the women's game, giving you regular updates about what is taking place on the WTA Tour, both on and off the court. Hi guys, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. It is Roland Garros French Open Time, my second favourite slam. Actually, the slams go in order of my favourites. So my favorite Australian Open. I'm a bit biased because I live in Australia and in Melbourne, and then it's French Open. Roland Garros, let me use the proper term, then Wimbledon, then US Open. So it just goes in the sequence I like. But it is it is Roland Garros time and I am very, very excited. And I'm really excited because I've got no idea what's gonna go on. I've got I don't have any feelings. Usually I have like a feeling going to a tournament and it usually is correct. But this year I've got nothing. If you listen to the last episode, that's what I was saying, as in it's all up in the air. But anyway, I'm excited to see where this tournament takes us. This episode is a bit late because they've already played the first round and we're about to go into round two right now. But I still think it's would be gre but I still think it's a great idea for me to just give you some of my predictions and just do the lay of the land and a bit of a cheat sheet. I did an Indian Walls cheat sheet. Haven't done it for other tournaments, but I think it'd be good to do one for RG. So here we are. And this episode I'll quickly run through my quarter by quarter predictions and then just the f I'll also recap the first round that I missed in terms of predicting it. Then give you my overall predictions of who I think is gonna win the tournament. And then just finish off with some final thoughts. And yeah, a quick episode. Get some information out there, you can hear some of my thoughts. But it's very, very exciting. So, starting off, I'm just gonna give you a bit of the the lay of the land, a little bit of landscape and history about the players and how well they've done the tournaments in the past ⁓ couple of years. And don't mind me, I do have my notes here, and I'll be looking down at times. I'm still very new to this recording and having a video as well. So Bear with me, but at some point I'll have it down pat. Anyway, so in the draw, we have quite a few champions there. I'll just run through them for you if you don't know them. So we've got four time champion and four time finalist. So she's never lost. She's never lost a slam final, but she's never lost a Roland Garros final, and that's Igasfiantec. Then two time finalist and one time champion in Coco Gauff And then we've got some other past winners in Ostapenko and Krejcikova who were in the main draw. And then we've got some former finalists who have all been in one final. And that's Sloane Stephens She was in the main draw. She did lose the first round. Sofia Kenin Karolina Muchova Jasmine Paolini and Aryna Sabalenka. And that's just like the lay of the land. Who's done well in the competition before and who's been relatively consistent in the past ⁓ few years at the French Open. And this French Open is interesting because I think a lot of people are coming in with something to prove, which they do in every competition, every major, every slam. I understand that, but it's good to look at what's maybe on the player's mind before they come into the tournament. So again, Coco comes in with a little bit of pressure. I don't think too much. But she does come in with some pressure as the defending champion. She would want to get to at least the semi-final. So she comes in on a title defense. Then we've got Aryna who I'm sure is out to prove that she can win that she can win a slam on a natural surface, not just hardcourt. And then we've got Iga who probably wants to reclaim her French Open title and her clay court queen title as well. Then we've got then we've got Elena Rybakina who is chasing down who's chasing down the calendar slam because she won Australian Open, so she's on track to do a calendar slam as of right now. But I also think Elena is looking for some slam to slam consistency because that has not happened for a long while. A long while. So I think she's looking at that. Then we've got Andreeva who's chasing her first major and in my opinion She's she's good on all surfaces, but she is extremely good on clay. And I think this is the tournament where she should be ch really chasing that first ⁓ major title. And then we've got the likes of Anisimova, Muchova Svitolina who are also probably looking to win their first slam here at the French. And then Osaka, I think she would be wanting to maybe make a deep run. on a surface that's not just hardcaught because she hasn't done that yet. And I think that would be the goal. The goal of course is to always win, but you need to have small goals in between that. Then we've got Kostyuk who is, you know, looking at the top ten. And I think having a deep run in this tournament would take her there. But it's all very interesting. And I think everyone has a big goal. And I'm very excited to see how it plays out. ⁓ yeah, very in excited and interested to see how it plays out and who essentially has the not the gut they all have the drive I don't know I just want to know who's gonna take it out so that's that on the lay of the land in my opinion then going into the first round it was a pretty good first round pretty good draw ⁓ I'll just do some recaps and The main recaps I'll be doing are the big players that have lost or aren't yeah, aren't playing anymore. And with some of them, okay, most of the players that did lose in the first round, it's a surprise, but not I'm not shocked. It's more like a disappointed but not surprised feeling. But there is one one loss that that completely like shocked and baffled me a bit. So we'll start with that one and that was Jessica Pegula losing to Losing to Kim Burrell in three sets. One, six, six three, six three. And I didn't expect Jess to win the tournament or go super deep into it, like quarterfinals or semifinals, if I'm being honest. But I didn't expect her to lose in the first round. Especially against Kim Burrell. There's some other players that maybe if she was drawn against, I would have expected her to I would have expected her to maybe lose. It'd be more conceivable, but losing to someone who's never made it past the first round of the French Open, I'm extremely surprised. Not to take away anything from Kim. She's just been getting better and better ⁓ in her tennis career and a bit more comfortable on the WTA circuit like full time. So can't take anything away from her. And then for the other players that I would say I'm not shocked that they lost. Like I would expect them to do better, but I'm not extremely surprised because some of them are not consistent major performers. They don't perform well on the biggest stage possible. So that's why. And also some of the players got, I would say, horrible draws that unfortunately, because they're the better player, they should be getting past that. But it's hard to say that when the person they're playing has been maybe in a semifinal. And I'll go through players like that. So we'll start with Ludmilla Samsonova, who was the 20th seed coming into the competition. And she lost in straight sets to Jil Jil Teichmann 6'4, 6'4. And I don't have too much of an opinion on this one. You can kind of see it coming with Samsonova. She's just She doesn't make a name for herself at the ⁓ Grand Slams. Then going to seed number twenty one, which is Clara Towson. She lost in three sets to Daria Snigur and she lost three six seven five six two looking at the score. Yeah, she lost three six, seven five, six two. And it's surprising, but to a point. Because I think Clara hasn't been herself this entire season. I don't think she's been fully herself. And she hasn't been winning matches. Consistently. So yeah, not too surprising. And she's also never gotten past the first round at RG. So again, sucks, but a bit unsurprising, maybe. Then we've got the 31st seed Cristina Busca who lost to Susan Bandeki. Sorry. Then we've got 31st seed Cristina Busca who lost to Susan Bandeki in three sets. That was 6 4 2 6 6 4. And a bit surprising to me, at least, because Cristina tends to do well in like the first round of a slam. She can get past it. But she was playing someone who's been on the tour for a bit and is a c was a qualifier. And qualifiers, I find them very dangerous because they come into a major with rhythm. They've played two or three matches. And They've got that rhythm of playing really big important matches. So they're very dangerous, especially for players that are like lower seeds or aren't seeded at all. But yeah, anyway, so you know, sucks for Cristina, but you have to move on. that's a crazy thing to say. Anyway, and then we've got 14th seed, Ekaterina Alexandrova. If you've listened to this podcast, you know I love Ekat But she lost straight sets to Camilla Osorio Serrano, 6264. And honestly, it was not the best draw for Ekat Like Camilla is great on clay. All her titles, all three of her titles have been on clay. So it was just I think when I did my prediction, because I do this there's this ⁓ brand company, I don't know, that have brackets for each like major tournament and you can pick who you think will win a match. I predicted for Ekat to lose that match. So I guess that one not surprising at all. And then lastly with the seeded players that are already out, we've got Linda Noskova, who lost to Maria Sakkari in straight sets, 7-5, 7-6. And first of all, wonderful performance from Sakkari. She was down a break in that third, third set, but she just kept sorry, there wasn't a third set. She was down a break in that second set, but she just kept pushing. She pushed a lot and was just being steady and didn't panic. Because what we see from Maria, what we've seen in the past from Maria is a lot of panicking. And that didn't happen in this match. So yeah, great performance. But for Linda, it's just an unfortunate draw. Like out of all the people she could possibly have played Playing Sakkari first round at a slam sucks. And I yeah, I'm a bit bummed because I like Linda, I like how she plays. I think she she has a great game in her arsenal. She has it all. She's powerful, like great ground strokes, but then she also has that touch. And I think she's causing from from Czechia so I expect them all to be I don't know, just have like a sublime touch and be very like cute with some of the things they do on the court. But but I also think it's time for Linda to to keep to push on and she just hasn't done it yet. So it's disappointing to see because when you're ranked number twelve, although Maria is a former top player as the twelfth seeded player in a tournament you should maybe be making at least playing three sets. But maybe I'm being harsh 'cause I expect more. Who knows? And then looking at the non-seeded players, I'll just try and go through these quickly. So this one was really heartbreaking. Especially if anyone saw the if anyone saw the press conference after Qinwen Zheng or Zheng Qinwen ⁓ lost. She was a quarter finalist last year and a former top ten player. ⁓ she lost in straight sets to Maja Chwalinska, 6'4, 6 Love. ⁓ ⁓ She's she's been injured. She's been coming back from injury and hasn't been playing a lot of consistent tennis. And it's really sad sad to see someone who was a top player who was who was and probably will be back in the top ten soon just be in this just in this down place. Especially because sometimes I think when you suffer an injury, it doesn't feel as though it's your fault. That you're in this situation. Because you can have a bad runner form, but if everything you're good health-wise, you can look to yourself and be like, ⁓ I should be playing better. And I think ⁓ Xin Wen has really high expectations of herself. So she doesn't like being being not the best, essentially. Even when she was a top ten player, you could see how highly she expects herself to play. And when she loses to players that are on paper better than her. She didn't like it. and I think yeah, she has that self expectation that's very high. And then I think she feels the weight of representing China and having those high expectations coming from her from her country. So sad to see. Then moving on to Emma Raducanu, ⁓ she played Solana Sierra, Lost and straights as well, six love, seven six. So very bad first set, but she did try and push through In the second set, it just didn't work out. And this was a bad draw for Emma. I had a feeling, again, in my bracket predictor, I said I thought she would lose this match because Sierra coming from South America, she's good on clay. And Emma's barely played. She's barely played tournaments. I think she pulled out the f the last like four tournaments. She played in Strasbourg in Strasbourg. and she played one match. And she lost that match. So she's only played one match on clay this season. So, you know, maybe not the highest of expectations that anyone had of her. Then we've got lastly Lois Boisson, last year's semi finalist, and I guess the French Open's breakout star. And I'm feel really sad for for Lois because she drew Kalinskaya and she lost that match six two six two. So that means she loses a bunch of points and she's gonna fall outside of the top 100 in her ranking. So she has to, I guess, do that same work to build her ranking back up again. And hopefully when she does this work, it'll be maybe slow and steady. Cause there's a lot of pressure coming into let's say having a breakout year or a breakout performance. And then the following year having to match that performance. And she's barely played any tennis. She's barely played. So I think it's very, very difficult for her, but she has the game to push her way back up. Like that spin is something that would frustrate a lot of players on the WTA tour. So yeah, sad to see, but I guess there's you go two steps forward, one step back. Okay, then moving on from that, we're gonna take a look at the quarter by quarter predictions. And I think doing it quarter by quarter, which I did learn from ⁓ YouTuber, Gil Gross. ⁓ he's on YouTube. He's on YouTube at tennis, I just said that, and he does recaps and stuff about tennis. So go check him out. I don't know him personally, but the way he does his predictions was very helpful when I was trying to figure out What's the best way to present information to everyone? So I have to give credit where it's due. Anyway, so starting with the first quarter, which is Aryna Sablanka's quarter. And this quarter, the seeds that are still left, because now we're working from round two. Round one, been and gone. So we're working from round two and the seeds that are still left in this quarter. And I say the seeds that are still left because this is the quarter that Jessica Pegula was in, but she got knocked out. So we've still got Ivo Jovich, who's seeded seventeenth, then we've got Naomi Osaka, who's seeded sixteenth, then we've got Victoria Mboko seeded ninth, then Madison Keys seeded nineteenth, and then Diana Schneider seeded at twenty-fifth. And then looking at this quarter of the draw, when I I've got my dark horse, and whenever I pick my dark horse, I have a seed and I have an unseeded player. And then for this quarter. And then for this quarter, I have my dark horses. And with the dark horses, I do seeded and unseeded. And I know some people would say if you're seeded, you're not a dark horse. But I think going into tournaments, excuse me, we know who the favorites are. And there are some people who might be a top player and have done well, but maybe not a lot of people expect them to make it. Yeah. No we have No. I don't think so. No. no. So many questions, so many calls, wow. 'Cause if you call I have to answer 'cause you know. Anyway, nu går call my part of us. Bye. And then for my dark horses for this quarter, I always do an unseeded dark horse and a seeded one. It's hard to say an unseeded player is a sorry, it's hard to say that a seeded player is a dark horse, but I think we know who the favourites are going into a tournament. So some people kind of fall out of that scope. And in my opinion, the people I'm about to mention do. So for this quarter, I think the seeded dark horse is Victorian Mboko. And I think she's always a dark horse for a major now. based on her last year. And then the unseeded Dark Horse, I've got Donna Vekic And then on Upset Alert, I have got Naomi Osaka. And the main reason I say that is because Osaka plays Vekic next round. And I think that will be a whoever can hit them hit each other off the court type of match. And Vekic does have the firepower to do that to Osaka. But that's just Obviously it's just a little prediction, I guess. And then matches to watch. I've got again Vekic Osaka second round match. I think it'll be a great match to watch. So excited to see that. And then for round three, so this is me guessing who will make it out of the round two matches. 'Cause I think by the time you listen to this for by the time some of these by the time some of you listen to the podcast it'll be It'll already be the third round. So I'm hoping some of these matchups happen. And I think another great match for the third round will be Osaka versus Iva ⁓ You know, kind of a ⁓ changing off the guard ⁓ And then my quarterfinal prediction, as in the two players that I think will make ⁓ to the quarterfinals or out of the quarter, I have ⁓ Aryna ⁓ and Victoria Mboko. Then the second quarter we have is Coco Gauff quarter. And Coco, pretty good draw, I would say, especially as a defending champ. And the seeds left in her draw. We've got Potapova seeded 28th. Then we've got Anna Kalinskaya at 22. Then Elise Mertens at 23. Then we've got Ann Li at 30. And then Amanda Anisimova rounding it off at 6. And for this quarter, I think the Dark horse is Porter Pova. She has been looking she's been looking like she has a point to prove. She's been looking she's been playing so aggressively, very front foot tennis, and she's been defending really, really well. And she's adding that part of her your she has really added to that part of her game. And I think Being a better defender on clay really, really helps. So Potapova she's looking she's looking quite dangerous. And then the second player I've got, the unseeded player, is Maria Sakkari. And I think Maria has the potential to string together some great performances and upset some of the players there. So That being said, we And then with my and then in this quarter my upset alert is Amanda Anisimova. I think I haven't seen Amanda play tennis in some time. She's has been ⁓ injured and getting a new coach dealing with a couple different things. So I wouldn't be too surprised if she lost early on, maybe second or third round. ⁓ yeah, that's all I have to say on that. And then the matches to watch. Again, these are this is a third round match potential. I think if Potapova and if Gauff make it through their second round matches, they'll meet in the third round. And I think that will be a wonderful, wonderful match to watch. So it'll be interesting. Hopefully that happens. And then my quarterfinal prediction is guys, this quarterfinal prediction is a bit crazy now that I'm about to say it out loud. But I've got Potopova and Elise Mertens Then moving on to the third quarter, we've got Swiatek's quarter. And I just have to say, somebody stitched Iga up. If she comes through this quarter and then goes on to win the titles, I personally think it would be a wonderful s ⁓ fine one of the best final runs. But that's only if she plays the players that are seeded in some of The players, maybe not even seeded, but some players that have caused a trouble in the past. So looking at the seeds that are left, and why I say Iga's draw is horrible. So seeds that are left, Svitolina, seventh seed. She's beaten Iga the last two matches they've played, and one of them was like just last week. Then we've got Xinyu Wang seeded thirty-two. ⁓ we've got Belinda Bencic, who beat Iga earlier this year at the United Cup. ⁓ we've got Marta Kostyuk And then Osterpenko, who has never lost a match to Iga, and they've played six times. And then Kostyuk difficult because she's just been on a tear lately. And upset alert, I've got Iga because it's just there's a lot of there are lot of what are they called? A lot of she has to like maneuver a minefield. Yeah. With this draw. And I think. If she beats one person, let's say it's Ostapenko, I don't think she'd then be able to beat the next person, like in a sequence. But I am happy to be proven wrong and surprised. And then potential matches to watch. Again, this is round three, so not too sure. It's just hopefully. We've got Iga Ostapenko. I mean, it's a classic match. Ostapenko leads the head to head six zero. Iga's never beaten beaten her. They're both Roland Garros Champions. I don't know. It'll be interesting. I would have popcorn and an ice cream and everything else that I bring to the to the movie theater. I'll bring it for this match if it happens. And then my quarterfinal prediction. Again, this is crazy. Now I my predictions are all over the place. Anyway, I've got Ostapenko and Svitolina. But I've maybe I should change it. Nah, not changing it, sticking to what I wrote down. Then last. quarter of the drawer is Elena Rybakina and she is the second seed. And the seeds that are left in her draw we've got Mirra Andreeva at eight, Marie Bouzkova at 27, Karolina Muchova at 10, Jasmine Paolini at 13, then Sorana Cirstea at 18, and Hailey Baptiste at 26. And my dark horse for this quarter I've got Hailey Baptiste And she's the seeded one at 26. And then my unseeded dark horse is Solana Sierra, who played really well. well she played really well Wimbledon last year, but she's been playing well on clay when she played Coco in in Italy just recently. She gave her a run, big run for money. So wouldn't surprise me to see Solana Sierra go a little bit deeper in this tournament. And then upset alert, unfortunately. Which I hate to say 'cause we all love this player, is Jasmine Paolini. I think she's got a difficult draw. She's got people around her, players around her that are just in good form, and her herself hasn't been in the greatest of form. I think she is now coming out of that peak which she reached. And a rant on that, Jasmine has had two years in the top ten, and she's maintained her place in the top ten. She's been in two back-to-back slam finals and she's won two 1000s tournaments. What else do you want from her? She has I think she just brightens I think she just brightens up tennis so much. She's so joyful and she works very hard. And it's not like she just plays singles, she plays doubles, and she plays doubles really well. So any jasmine Paolini slander will not be tolerated in this house. Anyway, moving on from that. Matches to watch. In this quarter, I've got for round two this time that happening, we've got Lis and Cirstea, Eva Lis and ⁓ Sorana Cirstea, then I've got Paolini versus Solana Sierra, and then my potential round three match that I really need to happen is Elena Rybakina versus Hailey Baptiste. And then my quarter final prediction for this quarter is Andreeva versus Baptiste. And that's all for the quarter by quarter predictions. So that leaves us with four quarterfinals. And I'll just recap them because from that I'm gonna let you know who I think will win the tournament and how the rest of the tournament will go. When I read this out loud, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but I don't even care. You know, I just wanna keep it interesting. so my first quarter final, as I said, Sabalenka Mboko, then Potapova Mertens, then Svitolina Ostapenko, then lastly Andreeva Baptiste. And moving on from that. And I'll be honest with you, a lot of my my predictions, some of them don't even have any base. It's just vibes. It's just vibes. And I know a lot of stats and I know a lot about tennis. But when I do predictions, I do like to work with like vibes, my heart and my head. So anyway, that's the quarterfinals. And then from Sabalenka and Mboko I think finally Mboko will beat Sabalenka. They've played twice already. And in the first match, Sabalenka blew Mboko out of the water, at least in the first set, and then Mboko gave herself a chance in the second set, but she couldn't see it through. And then recently, where was it? Indian Walls or Miami? I forgot which one they played. And Mboko was in the match, but you know, Sabalenka hardcore, you know, let that one go. So I think third times a charm third times a charm for Mboko. Then Potapova Mertens I think that's my craziest prediction. But I think Mertens wins that quarter. Now all my biases are coming out. If you know me personally, if you've listened to enough of the podcast, you know that Mertens one of my favourite players. So I would love for her to make a deep run, a semi final run at French Open. But she plays doubles at a very high level. So I think it can become difficult. not for Serena Williams, but that's another subject. Anyway, so Mertens to come out of that match against Potapova Then Svitolina Ostapenko. I think Svitolina would definitely win that match. Ostapenko would have to completely blow her out of the water. She's just not consistent enough throughout a whole match. And I think Svitolina is someone with a lot of grit and fight and can find her way back into the match. And then lastly, Andreeva Baptiste. As much as I would love Hailey to go on, I think her journey would end here against Andreeva. And then Yeah, and they recently played in Madrid. And I don't think Hailey gave her best showing. But it's also because Mirra played a near perfect game. Or near perfect match. Anyway, then semi-final we've got Mboko Mertens. I Mboko comes out of that match. And then second semi-final is Svitolina Andreeva. And I think Andreeva wins that match. ⁓ which is a rematch of the Australian Open was that quarterfinals? No, fourth round match. and I think Mirra gets her revenge. And then we finish with our final with two. Isn't Mboko still teenager? In my head, she's still a teenager. So two teenagers or two very young, very young people. Mboko Andreeva, a rematch of Adelaide this year, Adelaide final. And I think Mirra Andreeva wins her first major. And yeah, no basis of that. I predicted Mirra to win the French Open at the start of the year and I'm sticking by that. I'm sticking by that. ⁓ So anyway, be interesting to see. I would love to see that final because whoever wins would bring me a lot of joy. But that's that with my predictions. They're a bit they're a bit out there, but I'm excited to see. And they do seem very, very far fetched because of how consistent I think the top four have been at slams for like the past year, two, three years. So maybe I'm being a bit crazy, but when I do make predictions, I sometimes have to force myself to think outside the box because I could easily have written one, two, three, and four and everyone would be yeah, that makes sense. Like Coco, Iga, Sabalenka, Rybakina. Yeah, that's the f those are the semi-finalists. But I think maybe we'll have something different happening. And I think part of that is because of how competitive the field on the WTA is right now. And that makes it difficult to 'Cause the top four and the top ten and the top players have been very, very consistent. But I think there's so many players that are coming out of the woodworks who wanna make that push for the top ten. And they're playing very, very well. And we saw it in Rome, we saw it in Madrid. ⁓ so it yeah, it's very exciting, French Open. It'll be exciting to see. And yeah, I'm interested to see how it all plays out. I will be watching as many matches as I can. I do work. And the time difference is just not giving. But that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please make sure you share to anyone who likes tennis, especially women's tennis. Yeah, share to your friends or anyone who wants to, I don't know, get a new hobby. and then make sure you download the episode and please leave a five-star review on whatever you listen to. This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on YouTube as well. So please do what what you will with that information. And follow the Instagram as well, which is e at EWWT Podcast. And subscribe to my YouTube channel. And I think that's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. See you next episode. Bye.