One of the few people not talking about Naomi Osaka right now is Naomi Osaka. Her decision to snub the media at this year’s French Open over concerns about the negative impact of reporters’ questions on her mental health has dominated the build-up to the women’s event.
While many athletes have applauded Osaka’s stance, Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, branded it “a phenomenal mistake”. The reaction among her contemporaries has been more circumspect, with Ash Barty and Iga Swiatek among those who expressed respect for her decision while also pointing out that dealing with the press is part of the job.
Meanwhile, there is a tournament to be won.
Barty, the top seed, will begin her campaign against world No 70 Bernarda Pera. From there, the Australian is scheduled for a fourth round meeting with either 13th seed Jennifer Brady or Coco Gauff, the American teenager against whom she retired with an arm injury in Rome. The fifth seed Elina Svitolina, who reached her third quarter-final in Paris last year, could await in the last eight, before a projected semi-final against Swiatek, the defending champion.
Swiatek, the title favourite, was bumped up to eighth seed after former champion Simona Halep was forced to withdraw with a calf injury. She will start against the young Slovenian Kaja Juvan, a close friend who extended her to three sets at the Gippsland Trophy in Melbourne. The Pole anticipates another tough match.
“It’s not easy to play against your best friend,” said Swiatek. “But on court everybody is equal. I am actually good at forgetting that I’m playing against my best friend and just playing tennis.”
If she comes through as expected, Swiatek could face a fourth-round appointment with the 2016 champion Garbiñe Muguruza, whose outstanding start to the year has been derailed by a thigh injury. A potential meeting with last year’s finalist Sofia Kenin would follow, although the fourth-seeded American will first need to negotiate a potentially awkward opener against former champion Jelena Ostapenko.
Osaka’s prospects of claiming a third consecutive major received a boost after the US and Australian Open champion was placed in the opposite side of the draw to Barty and Swiatek. Osaka, who has yet to make the second week at Roland Garros, faces world No 63 Maria Patricia Tig in the opening round. A possible third round encounter with Paula Badosa of Spain, who has won 13 of her 15 matches on clay in the prelude to Roland Garros, winning the Serbia Open, would be one to watch.
Also seeking an extended stay in the French capital is former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu. Seeded sixth, she is scheduled to play Osaka in the quarter-finals, although all too familiar injury doubts surround the Canadian following this week’s withdrawal from the Strasbourg Open with an abdominal problem. Andreescu faces Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia in the opening round.
The most fancied contender to emerge from the bottom half of the draw is Aryna Sabalenka. While the Belarusian third seed has yet to make her first quarter-final at a major, she demonstrated her clay-court credentials by making the final in Stuttgart, where she lost to Barty, and underlined them further by avenging that defeat in the Madrid Open final.
Sabalenka meets Ana Konjuh of Croatia in the first round. To keep a possible last-16 appointment with either Victoria Azarenka or Madison Keys, former semi-finalists both, she will have to overcome a potentially stern third-round examination by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who pushed her to a final set in the last four of Madrid.
The acid test for Sabalenka could come in the form of a quarter-final against seventh seed Serena Williams, by whom she was undone in three brutal sets at the Australian Open. Williams, who starts against Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, arrives in Paris with just one win from her previous three matches, and may need to get past Angelique Kerber and Petra Kvitova to justify her seeding.
The draw has been relatively kind to the American, however, and while the last of her three titles in Paris came in 2015, it would be foolhardy to discount her chances of claiming the elusive 24th slam that would pull her level with Margaret Court’s record.
In contrast with the reticent Osaka, Williams is unlikely to go quietly.