Event info A-Z

The great unknown at the start of every tournament is of course the draw. It is traditionally held on the Friday of qualifiers week, at around 11.30 am. The draw that will be performed on Friday 24 May this year will be "semi-electronic". It will begin with the women's singles: the (96) unseeded players will be placed electronically in the draw. The 32 seeds will then be drawn "manually", a procedure that is usually performed by the reigning men's champion, namely Rafael Nadal. The men's singles will then be drawn in the same way, with Maria Sharapova, who won the women's singles in 2012, drawing the seeds.
X,000 balls

Thank you kindly, both. Circa 10:30 UK it is then

Yes, I've got 11.30 marked down too.

Compliments for JoKo from her opponent:

"Great come back today4-6 6-3 7-5!I was down set and 0-2 0-40!Tough conditions:wind, rain, hail!4 times the match was stopped! @rolandgarros
But with all these difficulty we both played very good! Tomorrow I am 2nd match after 10 court 14 vs Zhou #rolandgarros"

Wozniacki for Laura - interesting match.

 

Once it was apparent Laura had to face one of the top 16 seeds, this isn't a bad draw but still not great overall. Weather conditions likely to strongly favour Wozniacki, though I've just checked and the forecast is improving.

Bally and Hev should be happy enough with their draws and can help each other out as Bally beat Voegele last week and Hev has played lots of doubles with Erakovic.

-- Edited by tony_orient on Friday 24th of May 2013 09:59:00 AM

Laura's draw is Wozniacki, then Jovanovski/Q, then Makarova/Kuznetsova (or less likely Parmentier/Rybarikova), then Kerber/Lepchenko (or 6 others), then Serena

With Laura you never quite know if she's going to crash out first round or go deep. An in form Sveta would be very tough.

Wozniacki has been dire on the clay this year (less so in previous seasons) but did reasonably well on hard prior to that, making the final of Indian Wells, semi of Dubai.

On clay in 2013, no wins, 4 losses to Carla Suarez Navarro 6-7(6) 1-6, Shvedova 2-6 4-6, a crazy match against Jovanovski 6-2 4-6 6-7(5) and this week Zheng 2-6 4-6

Sveta's results this year on the clay not as impressive as you might have expected given her class on the surface and form on hard earlier in the year. Lost to Halep 1-6 1-6 in the first round of Rome. Beat Petrova then lost to Kerber in 3 sets in Madrid. Beat Lepchenko in Estoril before losing to Oprandi in the quarters.

Makarova has some super wins this year beating Azarenka and Bartoli in Madrid, Kerber and Bartoli earlier in the year in Aus Open on hard. Strange loss in last match to Oudin in Rome, retired when 2-4 behind in 3rd set.

Jovanovski lost to Lepchenko in 3 sets in Brussels. Only win on clay this year against Caroline Wozniacki, heavy losses to Jankovic and Goerges. Also lost Fed Cup indoors on clay to Kerber and Barthel (3 sets).

Looks like Laura's serve is going to be the key. If she serves really well then she could make the quarters. Can't imagine she would get away with an average, or even poor, serving display against Makarova or Kuznetsova. Wozniacki could be tricky if she wakes up from her slump especially if the conditions are slow.

 

-- Edited by kundalini on Friday 24th of May 2013 07:25:50 PM

The draw is on live video (if you're REALLY able to sit through all the speechyfying . . .)

http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/multimedia/live.html