Halep, Osaka up for tough challenge

Paris, May 25

Want to know who will win the women’s French Open? Stick a pin in the draw. That cliche has seldom rang more true than at this year’s Roland Garros, where no players stand out and few seem to be hitting form in the run up to the year’s second Major.

The nine women’s clay court tournaments so far this season have had nine different champions, and with nobody able to dominate, who will win the French is pure guesswork.

“Anything can happen... it’s hard to pick a winner,” three-times champion Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario told Reuters recently. “It’s an unusual situation… quite open. Anything can happen in two weeks.” Certainly if top seed and world No. 1 Naomi Osaka is going to add to her U.S. and Australian Open titles, she will have to do it the hard way.

Assuming she navigates past Slovak Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the first round, the Japanese star will face either former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka or dynamo 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko. Neither one is a player Osaka will relish meeting in a second round match, especially not on the Parisian clay, a surface on which she is still learning.

“Naomi looks to have staying power and she has become a huge star,” the 1991 and 1992 men’s champion Jim Courier said. “Clay is not the surface that matches her style the best but she can beat anyone if she’s sharp.” — Reuters