Defending champion Iga Swiatek returns to the French Open on Sunday when she takes on Russia’s Anastasia Potapova and will surely be the favourite to win.
Swiatek has won her last 17 matches at Roland Garros and is bidding to reach the quarterfinals for the fifth consecutive year.
Last time out, the Polish top seed celebrated her 23rd birthday with a comfortable win over Czech Marie Bouzkova, while world number 43 Potapova beat China’s Wang Xinyu in a hard-fought three sets to reach the fourth round for the first time.
The match gets underway on Court Philippe Chatrier (10am BST), with third seed Coco Gauff of the United States taking on unseeded Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy.
Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova and eighth seed Ons Jabeur will face off in the No. 1 and No. 3 seeded matches respectively on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
On the men’s side, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Stefanos Tsitsipas are scheduled to compete.
Gauff, the U.S. Open champion, will face a difficult match against Cocciaretto.
The Italian has already beaten two seeded players at Roland Garros this year, beating Beatrice Haddad Maia in the first round and beating Ludmila Samsonova in straight sets last time out.
However, Gauff, a 2022 French Open finalist, faced Cocciaretto at the Dubai Tennis Championships in February and won 6-1, 7-5.
Alcaraz aims for top eight
In the men’s match, Alcaraz will face 21st seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, who has never reached the quarterfinals in Paris but has beaten the Spaniard three times on hard courts during his career.
The winner of that match will face the winner of the match between Tsitsipas and unseeded Matteo Arnaldi, the Italian player ranked 35th in the world who beat sixth-seeded Andrey Rublev on Friday.
Tsitsipas, the ninth seed from Greece and runner-up at the 2021 French Open, has reached the fourth round for the sixth consecutive year.
Sinner, who won the Australian Open earlier this year, will face the final French player in the men’s singles, Corentin Moutet, in a night session match at the Chatrier.
