Whatever sort of storylines you prefer, the French Open has provided.
If you like powerhouses rolling toward huge late-round matchups, we’re still on pace for a Carlos Alcaraz–Novak Djokovic semifinal on the men’s side and an Iga Swiatek–Aryna Sabalenka final on the women’s.
If you like up-and-comers with major opportunities, 20-year-old Holger Rune is now the favorite to reach the final in the bottom half of the draw.
And if you like comeback stories, then holy smokes, is this the tournament for you. Elina Svitolina had a child last October and hasn’t been back on tour for two months, and she’s swung her way into the quarterfinals. So has 2021 finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who missed last year’s tournament with a knee injury. So, too, has 2022 semifinalist Alexander Zverev, who suffered a horrific ankle injury in this tournament last year.
Each Slam takes on its own personality, and we’ll see which of these stories persist as we prepare for the later rounds. But with the quarterfinals on deck, let’s rank the remaining contenders in both the men’s and women’s French Open.
Men
1. Carlos Alcaraz (No. 1 seed)
Pct. of points won thus far: 60.0% (one set lost)
Title odds (per Caesars and Tennis Abstract): +120 (equivalent to 45%) and 32%
Potential title path (highest seeds): Tsitsipas-Djokovic-Ruud
It’s increasingly difficult to think of the 20-year-old Alcaraz as anything other than the best player in the world when healthy. He missed nearly four months of winter tournaments with injury, but since returning to action in mid-February, the defending US Open champ has gone 34-3 with five finals appearances and four titles in seven tournaments. He hasn’t dropped a set in four matches against top-10 opponents in that span. He can still take his eye off the ball at times — he lost to qualifier Fabian Marozsan in Rome in early-May, and he dropped a 6-3 set in an otherwise easy cruise past Taro Daniel in the second round. But the bigger the opponent and occasion, the better he plays.
This is maybe the most staggering statistic of the tournament: Alcaraz has won 60% of his points in each of his first four matches. That is a level of consistency that a 20-year-old — especially one with such epic expectations — is not supposed to possess. He plays with…
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