Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff are among the favourites to lift the women’s singles title at the 2025 French Open, set to begin with main draw action on Sunday. The first of these three is even the defending champion at Roland-Garros.
All three women, however, have been awarded a draw of varying difficulty. While Sabalenka and Swiatek, the first and the fifth seeds respectively, are in the top half of the draw, Gauff anchors the bottom half by virtue of being seeded second.
Before the three women get their campaigns started, it is worth taking a look at the difficulty rating for each of their draws:
Coco Gauff – Easiest
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The 21-year-old Gauff will open her campaign with an encounter against Olivia Gadecki, with either wildcard Chloe Paquet or a qualifier lying in wait. The two big seeds in her section are Anna Kalinskaya, who is not particularly well known for her prowess on clay, and Barbora Krejcikova, who is playing in just her second tournament of the 2025 season after returning from injury.
Gauff's projected quarterfinal opponent is Madison Keys, who has not played at her best since winning the Australian Open way back in January. The other big seed in the section, Emma Navarro, also does not inspire much confidence given her results in 2025 so far.
The only player who can come close to Coco Gauff in terms of recent form is Mirra Andreeva, the fifth seed and her projected semifinal opponent. Both players, if they make it that far, will meet each other for the third straight tournament. Coco Gauff beat Andreeva both in Rome and Madrid earlier this month.
Aryna Sabalenka - Mediocre
After a couple of what should be easy matches against Kamila Rakhimova and Jil Tiechmann or a qualifier, Aryna Sabalenka will find herself in a section with explosive power hitters.
Danielle Collins and Leylah Fernandez are the top seed's probable third-round opponents while the likes of Petra Kvitova, Amanda Anisimova and Clara Tauson loom ahead. All three women from the latter are part of a rare club not to have negative records against Sabalenka. While it's difficult to assess Kvitova's chances given that she is still only a few tournaments old in her comeback, the other two will fancy their chances.
Iga Swiatek, Jasmine Paolini, Qinwen Zheng, Elina Svitolina and Peyton Stearns are the names anchoring the second quarter of the top half. Given that all five have won titles on clay and enjoy playing on the red dirt, means that the top seed will have a challenge at her hand no matter who comes through.
Coco Gauff anchors the bottom half of the draw, making for the potential finals opponent for Sabalenka.
Iga Swiatek - Toughest
Iga Swiatek neither has an easy start like Aryna Sabalenka nor an open second quarter to look forward to like Coco Gauff. Her entire draw is fraught with danger.
After an opener against the dogged Rebecca Sramkova, Swiatek could run into the 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu in the second round. A win here could set up a third-round showdown against the big-hitting Marta Kostyuk. While she is still expected to win those match-ups given that she has not lost the two players in any of their previous meetings, the real test could come in the last 16.
Swiatek's nemesis, Jelena Ostapenko, could be her opponent in the fourth round, provided that she beat the likes of Elena Rybakina and Belinda Bencic. In one of the most remarkable recent head-to-heads, Ostapenko leads Swiatek 6-0 having beaten the four-time French Open champ twice already this year.
If she were to come through the precarious section, Swiatek could run into Rome champ Jasmine Paolini or quarterfinalist (and Madrid semifinalist) Elina Svitoliva in the quarterfinal. Both women possess incredible footstep and clay prowess. The former will even have the extra motivation to exact revenge for her final loss from last year.
Aryna Sabalenka and Zheng Qinwen, both of whom have beaten Swiatek in big clay finals in the past, loom ahead as potential semifinal opponents, while Coco Gauff is her projected opponent in the final.
