"We have a million miles between now and the French Open, but Iga Swiatek is 1A and 1B as far as favorites go" - Andy Roddick
Andy Roddick has picked two-time defending champion Iga Swiatek as the favorite for the 2024 French Open as far as the women's singles category is concerned, despite the fact that the tournament is more than weeks away.
There will be at least three major WTA tournaments taking place between now and the French Open in May - the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, the Madrid Open and the Italian Open. The first is a 500-level event, while the other two are WTA 1000-level competitions.
Of these, the World No. 1 will be the two-time defending champion at Stuttgart this season. She is also the defending runner-up at Madrid, in addition to being a two-time winner at Rome in the past (reached quarterfinals last year).
With her clay prowess so well established, Roddick had no qualms about picking Swiatek as the one to beat at Roland Garros in May-June, stating that the three-time French Open winner should be "1A and 1B" in terms of favorites at the moment.
The American believed that World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka and World No. 4 Elena Rybakina are both capable of giving her a fight, but emphasized that either would have to have a spectacular clay season in the lead-up to really dethrone her as the incumbent favorite for the Clay Slam.
"We have a million miles between now and the French Open and it’s going to be based on form going in, but Iga Swiatek is 1A and 1B as far as favourites go on this surface," Roddick said in a blogpost he wrote for betway.
"Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka are both players that can bother her with pace and speed, but someone is going to have to put together a massive clay-court season to even enter the conversation with Iga on clay," he added.
Swiatek won the 2023 French Open with a win over Karolina Muchova in the final, while she took down Coco Gauff in the final of the 2022 edition. Before t hat, she won the 2020 French Open to win her maiden Grand Slam title, beating Sofia Kenin in the final.
Iga Swiatek won the 2023 French Open with a "serious injury"
In a recent interview, Iga Swiatek revealed that she won the 2023 French Open with a "serious injury," and that she was glad to just take part in the tournament at the time. Regardless, the 22-year-old put in a stunning display, beating the likes of Lesia Tsurenko, Coco Gauff and Beatriz Haddad Maia along the way.
"At Roland Garros, not everything depended on me. I had quite a serious injury. I'm glad I managed to take part in it at all," Swiatek said.
So far in 2024, Swiatek has won two titles - the Qatar Open and the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. She was last in action at the Miami Open, where she fell in the fourth round to Ekaterina Alexandrova.