The Biggest Storylines from the 2025 French Open Draw
After the draw ceremony at Roland Garros, a few clear themes emerge.
PARIS, France — The draw ceremony for the 2025 French Open took place Thursday afternoon at Roland Garros, inside the L’Orangerie (my favorite French word to pronounce, try it!) near Court Simonne Mathieu.
The luck of the draw is the most important luck in tennis, and there was a mix of fortunes in forecasts for the favored few in France.
Here are the big takeaways:
Iga Swiatek Might Just Be Screwed
Iga Swiatek is a four-time champion at Roland Garros, including each of the last three years. But though she’s been a nearly Nadalian foregone conclusion at Roland Garros in her career, Swiatek arrives low on confidence after a string of surprising losses this year knocked her ranking down to No. 5. Her her path to a fifth title here, which she would need to preserve even that diminished ranking, couldn’t have been much tougher.
After a reasonable opening match against 41st-ranked Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia, Swiatek could then face Emma Raducanu or Wang Xinyu in the second round. Her first seed would be No. 26 Marta Kostyuk in the third round.
The fourth round is where the real nightmares lie: Swiatek could face No. 12 Elena Rybakina, against whom she is 0-2 on clay, or No. 21 Jelena Ostapenko, against whom she is infamously 0-6 overall, including two more losses this year.
If she can somehow escape that (or if perhaps Belinda Bencic rescues her by knocking out those players before the fourth round), Swiatek would then face recent Italian Open champion No. 4 Jasmine Paolini in the quarterfinals, and then perhaps top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals.
Naomi Osaka’s Draw Unluck Continues
Naomi Osaka, who held match point against Swiatek in the second round here last year, has gotten another potentially tough early round assignment this year, opening against No. 10 Paula Badosa in the first round.
Osaka’s draw luck has been quite brutal during her comeback for maternity leave. Aside from her early meeting with eventual champion Swiatek last year here, last year she faced eventual quarterfinalist Emma Navarro in the second round of Wimbledon, and eventual semifinalist Karolina Muchova in the second round of the U.S. Open (after previously beating No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko in the first round).
But Osaka has more matches under her belt than at any previous time in her comeback, successfully scaling down a peg to the WTA 125 level (essentially the Challengers for women) and winning a title in Saint-Malo, France.
Badosa has struggled recently with a recurrence of her chronic back injury, but said in an on-court interview this week at WTA 500 Strasbourg that she is “pain free” once more.
Badosa and Osaka have, perhaps surprisingly, never played before; if Osaka hadn’t withdrawn before her second round match here in 2021, following the fracas over her refusal to do post-match press conferences, she would’ve faced Badosa in the third round.
Top-Heavy Men
The men’s draw at this French Open looks lopsided at its offset, with a disproportionate number of the formidable players landing in the upper half with top-seeded Jannik Sinner.
Sinner is set to dine on local cuisine here, with a feast of French players on his plate: he will open against Arthur Rinderknech as an amuse-bouche, and then follow that with a sampler of two possible wildcards, Terence Atmane or Richard Gasquet, in the second round. In the fourth round, he could face the top Frenchman, No. 14 Arthur Fils.
Sinner’s third round is likely to be his toughest test before the quarterfinals, likely against Jiri Lehecka or No. 26 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Lots of in-form folks will be fighting for that quarterfinal spot against Sinner, led by No. 5 Jack Draper. Draper’s eighth of the draw also includes the likes of Gael Monfils, Jakub Mensik, and No. 9 Alex de Minaur.
The second-highest seed on the top half of the draw with Sinner is No. 3 Alexander Zverev, last year’s runner-up here, who flailed during Sinner’s absence (and just took another bad loss to Alexandre Muller yesterday in his hometown event, ATP 500 Hamburg).
Zverev’s recent struggles have been well-documented here; you may remember his loss to Learner Tien in Acapulco being among them.
Zverev drew his lowest-ranked conqueror, Learner Tien, in the first round of this French Open. Zverev could face Matteo Arnaldi or No. 29 Felix Auger Aliassime in the third round. The in-form Francisco Cerundolo, who beat him twice during this stretch, looms as a possible fourth round for Zverev.
The final stretch of this top half includes two big names who haven’t been near their peaks in 2025, but still wouldn’t be a welcome match-up for anyone: No. 11 Daniil Medvedev and No. 6 Novak Djokovic (who recently ended his coaching relationship with Andy Murray after about half-a-year together).
As a sign of how top-heavy the draw is: six of the seven seeded American men—who have not been in great form lately as a group and are at their least formidable here as a rule—are clustered on the bottom half.
Other First Round Treats
Aside from Osaka-Badosa, here are a handful of other matches to circle for the opening round (and I will do my normal daily list of matches to watch for subscribers before each day’s play as well).
Kei Nishikori vs. No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz
Kei Nishikori has said that one of his goals for this comeback stage of his career was to get to face the greats of the young generation, naming Alcaraz specifically. Well, he got his wish. This wouldn’t seem likely to be competitive, but it’s always cool when players from different cohorts who might’ve missed each other align at least once (still sad we never got a Coco Gauff vs. Serena Williams match).
No. 12 Elena Rybakina vs. Belinda Bencic
Bencic’s instant success in return from maternity leave has been one of the more significant in women’s tennis results this year.
Bencic is 2-1 against Rybakina, including a win in the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi semifinals earlier this year. Clay is probably Bencic’s worst surface, though, so Rybakina could be able to have the time to set up her big shots against her here.
No. 13 Ben Shelton vs. Lorenzo Sonego
Folks may not remember already, but this was a quarterfinal meeting at the most recent major, with Shelton outlasting Sonego in a four-set thriller that then got more attention for the awkward post-match interview that followed after Shelton sounded off.
Sonego beat Shelton in four sets in the first round here two years ago; neither has had a spectacular clay season coming in, so this one is tough to call. But both are showmen, and it would be a great sleeper pick for a night session here.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova vs. No. 8 Zheng Qinwen
Zheng returns to Roland Garros for the first time since winning her gold medal on these courts last August. She’s got little time for nostalgia with the opening hand she was dealt, the ever-formidable Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the runner-up here four years ago.
Pavlyuchenkova won their lone previous meeting last year in Cincinnati, right after Zheng’s Olympic triumph. Zheng lost her opening match in Australia this year to Laura Siegemund, so though she’s a formidable player, she’s not immune to early jitters against a savvy veteran.
For a more granular take on both draws, we will have the annual “Draw Me Like One of Your French Opens” preview show on No Challenges Remaining tomorrow.
Thanks for reading Bounces! Excited to ride the ride through all these matches and more with y’all over the next two weeks! -Ben
As a Swiatek fan, I'll say that just about any draw would look challenging for her right now, given her current form. But I don't think this one is terrible. Raducanu and Kostyuk seem like the tricky ones to me. If Ostapenko is there in the fourth round, yes, I'll be extremely pessimistic. But it's Ostapenko; there's a good chance she won't get there. Rybakina would be dangerous, but she hasn't been in great form herself. While I wouldn't take Paolini lightly in the quarters, I'd much rather Swiatek face her than Sabalenka or Gauff, which could have happened instead. And if Swiatek does get to the semis, she'd only have to face one of Sabalenka, Collins, Tauson, Anisimova, Shnaider, Yastremska, Stearns, Eala and Zheng. A lot of them could have posed a danger to Swiatek in her section, but now they'll all be knocking each other out in their own section.
On the men's side, I actually think Arthur Fils in the fourth round would be Sinner's toughest test before the quarterfinals, not Lehecka or Davidovich Fokina in the third round.
Very top heavy draw for the women too. The first quarter yet again showcases both Saba and Qinwen (5/8 tournies this year) while the 2nd quarter (Paolini/Swiatek) is brutally stacked with notably way less Qs and WCs than the other three quarters. The Coco 4th quarter is a dream, she should have no troubles making a deep run.