Rivals attempt to dethrone Swiatek at French Open

French Open 2025

Location: Roland Garros, May 25 – June

Will Iga Swiatek win the French Open, or will one of her rivals take the reign?

The 23-year-old has won four of his past five titles there, making him the three-time defending champion.

However, Poland’s former world number one doesn’t show up at Roland Garros sporting her trademark invincibility.

By the end of 2024, Sabalenka had won two of the four Grand Slams that year, taking Swiatek’s place as the world’s number one.

The Belarusian, who finished second at the Australian Open in January, is in top form. In the run-up to Roland Garros, she won the Madrid Open and has now won 34 of her 40 matches.

In her previous four French Open appearances, American Gauff has not lost before the quarter-finals.

In a dominating 2024 season, Italy’s Jasmine Paolini defeated Gauff to win the Italian Open title in May, and lost to Swiatek in Paris.

Mirra Andreeva, a history-making teenager, is also up for the challenge. The 18-year-old Russian reached the semi-finals last year, and she could become the youngest woman to win a major since 2004. She won the WTA 1000 title in February.

The 28-year-old has never won a singles match at the French Open, but Katie Boulter is the top-ranked British woman in that category.

However, Boulter celebrated her first clay-court victory at a WTA 125 event in Paris last week by winning her first clay-court match in Madrid last month.

Emma Raducanu, the former US Open champion, said she was beginning to “build a relationship” with clay courts after finishing her Strasbourg preparations for the French Open, but she was injured in her second-round exit.

After returning to the top 50 of the world, reaching the fourth round of the Italian Open, and defeating Daria Kasatkina, the 17-year-old, on clay in recent months, Raducanu will hope to overcome any back issues quickly.

The women’s singles will feature fellow Britons Sonay Kartal and Jodie Burrage.