Former champion Simona Halep arrives at the rescheduled French Open as the player to beat in a women’s draw missing title holder Ashleigh Barty and recent US Open winner Naomi Osaka, two of the world’s top three.

Other than the odd
time, the French Open will pretty much be the same; they have been granted
permission to allow a small number of fans into the complex, the clay will
still, be red and the balls will still be yellow.

With a lot of major names pulling out this year, World No 2 Halep will be on the prowl for her second French Open title.  

1. Simona Halep

Building up to the tournament, Halep won two claycourt titles in Prague and Rome giving her clear
momentum going into the Roland Garros.

The second-seeded couldn’t
have asked for a smoother path to the semifinals.

The second-highest
seed in her section is Kiki Bertens, who hasn’t won a match since February, and
the Halep is slated to play Marketa Vondrousova in the fourth round, who is
still finding her rhythm after undergoing wrist surgery last fall.

2. Victoria
Azarenka

The Belarusian has
surprised the tennis fraternity with her performance post-restart. She reached two
finals in New York before making a quarter-final run in Rome.

The 10th-seeded
will definitely bank on her form and consistency to grab her third grand slam
and the first French Open title.

3. Garbine
Muguruza

Muguruza last won
the French Open back in 2016 and is currently ranked 15 in the world.

The Spaniard is
coming on the back of an impressive semi-final run in Rome and showed that she is
best suited to the clay court.

The 26-year-old
will go into the Open all guns blazing with her high-risk style of play and try
to grab her third Grand Slam title.

4. Sloane Stephens

Stephens lost out
to Halep in the 2018 French Open final. Incidentally, that also remains to be the
best performance in the tournament for the 29th-seeded.

Plagued by
inconsistency, the 27-year-old has only won a single Grand Slam, however, the American
will be looking to change that record pretty soon.

5. Serena Williams

After going down
against Victoria Azarenka in the US Open Semifinal, time  is
running out for the 38-year-old to conquer her 24th Grand Slam.

The US
international comes into the claycourt without any practice and it is
definitely not her most favourite outing. She withdrew from the Italian Open
owing to an Achilles problem.

Williams won her
last Roland Garros in 2015 and is yet to win a Grand Slam since 2017.