Andrea Petkovic has named the six players who she thinks are real contenders to win Roland Garros this year.
The men’s singles tournament at the Paris major has one clear front runner, with Jannik Sinner the big favorite to win Roland Garros this year.
However, the women’s singles tournament is more wide open, particularly as world number one Aryna Sabalenka relatively underperformed in Madrid and Rome.
With just days to go until the Roland Garros main draw gets underway, former semifinalist Petkovic has revealed the players who she really thinks have a chance of winning the title in Paris this year.
Andrea Petkovic backs Coco Gauff to defend her Roland Garros title
When previewing Roland Garros on The Big T Podcast, Coco Gauff’s former coach Brad Gilbert named nine players to win the women’s singles title, as well as the rest of the field.
Gilbert said, “I’ve got 10 and I’ve got Sabalenka, [Elena] Rybakina, Coco, Iga [Swiatek], [Mirra] Andreeva, Marta Kostyuk, [Elina] Svitolina, [Karolina] Muchova, [Victoria] Mboko and number 10…the field.”
Petkovic then gave her prediction later on in the podcast, and while she included the likes of Sabalenka, Gauff, Iga Swiatek, she did not mention Madrid Open champion Marta Kostyuk, Karolina Muchova and Victoria Mboko.
She said, “I would say there are Sabalenka, Rybakina, Gauff, Swiatek, Svitolina and Andreeva. Six women that are legit contenders for me.”
Who will win the Roland Garros Women’s Singles title?
Petkovic was then asked to name both her men’s and women’s singles champions, to which she responded by choosing top seed Sinner in the ATP draw, while backing Gauff to defend her Roland Garros title.
The former top 10 player then made her bold prediction for the tournament, with Petkovic picking another American in Hailey Baptiste to reach the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
Andrea Petkovic suggests Jannik Sinner should be given more respect if he wins Roland Garros
After predicting Sinner to win Roland Garros, Petkovic proceeded to explain that the respect for the Italian would only go up.
Petkovic then suggested that Sinner will deserve more respect than she thinks he is going to get if he does win Roland Garros.
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“I’m going with Sinner, but I want to preface this by saying that if he really does win Roland Garros my amount of respect that is already the height of the mountains and all of South Tyrol is going to rise even higher, because I think he’s played so much at one point he must be emotionally exhausted,” said Petkovic.
“I don’t care that his body seems to be indestructible, but he must get emotionally exhausted and if he wins this it will just be amazing, but I just don’t see anybody else beating him so that’s why I pick him.
“But I think we should respect it more because I have the feeling that if he does win it, people will be like yeah of course he won it, but I think we should really give it the respect that it deserves in the case he does win it.”
The main draw of Roland Garros will get underway on Sunday, May 24.
