World No 1 Iga Swiatek came in as a heavy favourite as the two-time defending champion and winning both the lead-up events in Madrid and Rome, so you might wonder why when we were asked for predictions I looked elsewhere. Firstly, I am notoriously terrible at predictions, and secondly, I like to look away from the obvious and really felt that Elena Rybakina, if 100 per cent healthy, could cause Swiatek problems, being one of the few people to be able to hit through her on the clay.
It was to be Naomi Osaka who would come closest to toppling the defending champion as early as the second round, holding match point. It would be the rest of the field who would pay for that near defeat. 17 games conceded to Osaka in Round 2, 17 games including a double bagel conceded in the five rounds that followed.
Five Grand Slam titles for Iga Swiatek, who turned 23 during the French Open and has opened up an almost 4,000 point lead on new world No 2 Coco Gauff.
On the men’s side, we had question marks over a number of the top 10: Novak Djokovic was questioning his own form having not reached a final in the first part of the year, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner were coming back from injuries, Danill Medvedev still doesn’t really like clay, Andrey Rublev had only a few weeks back having been in hospital, and 14-time champion Rafa Nadal used his protected ranking of number nine but wasn’t sure until the last minute whether he would play or not.
