Serena Williams’ pregnancy announcement last month triggered a sequence of events that has left this year’s women’s draw at Roland Garros wide open and primed for a new champion.
The French federation then refused to award Maria Sharapova a wild card for the tournament with the Russian on the comeback trail following a 15-month doping suspension.
With Li Na long since retired that means the winners of five of the past six French Opens —Serena (2013, 2015), Sharapova (2012, 2014) and Li (2011) — are absent from the field, while several pretenders to the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen are battling injury and loss of form.
Simona Halep, the 2014 runner-up, established herself as arguably the leading challenger by winning the Madrid Open before reaching the Rome final, but an ankle injury has hampered her preparations.
The Romanian, who faces Slovakia’s Jana Cepelova in the first round, earlier this week rated her chances of playing in Paris as just “50-50”.
World No. 1 Angelique Kerber has endured a miserable clay-court season, losing early in Stuttgart and crashing out in her Rome opener, while retiring from her last-16 clash in Madrid with a lower back injury.
Clay has never been her preferred surface, and the 29-year-old made an opening round exit in Paris last year. She has only once made it as far as the quarterfinals.
“I will just try to, you know, take it step by step and try to get in love a little bit with the clay,” Kerber told reporters on Friday.
“Everybody knows it’s not my favourite surface, but we have to play on clay,” she said. “Also last year this was not the best weeks for me. It was my best year, but... when I played tournaments on clay, I was not playing so well.”
Defending champion Garbine Muguruza’s fortunes on the surface have proved almost as bleak.
Her only three wins came in Rome where she reached the semifinals only for a neck injury to force her to quit against eventual champion Elina Svitolina, the fourth time the Spaniard has failed to complete a match in 2017.
Petra Kvitova provides one of the tournament’s feel-good storylines with the two-time Wimbledon champion making a shock comeback in the French capital.
The Czech star is one of few players with genuine Grand Slam pedigree in the draw, with Victoria Azarenka, the 2012 and 2013 Australian Open champion, not quite ready for Roland Garros after the birth of her son.
Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki suffered a scare when she limped out of Strasbourg with a back problem, while third-ranked Karolina Pliskova’s best results this season have come on hard courts.
