French Open 2017: Top contenders

French Open 2017 will mark one full year of major upheaval in men's tennis, esp. at the top. Cast your minds back to May 2016 - Djokovic arrived in Paris, having won the three previous slams; he went on to clinch his 1st French Open title and thereby complete his career slam. Andy Murray had started to put together a string of strong clay court performances, having defeated Djokovic at Rome and he went on to reach his first final at Roland Garros, becoming the first Britisher since 1937 to do so. These two had also contested the Australian Open final that year as well as the finals of the previous two ATP Masters 1000 clay court tourneys. What about the other two members of the Big Four? Nadal, who had a good start to the clay court season in 2016 (winning Monte Carlo and Barcelona), then went on to suffer straight-set defeats against Murray (at Madrid) and Djokovic (at Rome), respectively. Nadal had to ultimately withdraw from the 3rd round at Paris, citing wrist injury. And injury is what kept Federer away from French Open 2016, ending his astonishing record of 65 consecutive grand slam appearances.

Coming into French Open 2017, however, things look very different. Djokovic's win-loss record this year reads a fairly middling 20-6 with just one title (at Doha, before the Australian Open). In 2016, those numbers were 37-3 with five titles. Andy Murray, the world no. 1, has had an even more disappointing 2017; his win-loss record this year is 16-7 overall and a ridiculously poor 4-4 on clay. On the other hand, Nadal has had a resurgence of sorts. The king of clay is already 36-6 this year and an even more impressive 17-1 on clay, with all his three titles coming on the red dirt. Three of those losses have come at the hands of his great rival, Roger Federer, who's decided to skip Roland Garros for the 2nd year in succession. This time, however, the absence is more tactical instead of being injury-induced, as the Swiss, having won at Melbourne, targets the faster courts of Wimbledon and US Open in the autumn of his career.

The most unpredictable slam!

If one glances through the list of top grand slam winners (29 winners) who've won at least 5 titles, one notices that out of a total 244 grand slam titles between them, French Open comes in at the last (constituting 42 titles or 17.2%). 

Source: Wikipedia

The numbers would've been even more skewed if not for the apathy the earlier champions showed for Australian Open. It's common knowledge that a lot of top Open-era players (Bjorn Borg, for example) skipped travelling Down Under due to scheduling (A.O. was earlier held at the end of the season), travel times involved etc. The tournament was rescheduled to January in 1987. 

If we look at slam winners since 1988 (i.e. the year Australian Open moved from grass to hard court), French Open has seen the most number of unique winners. Despite Nadal's dominance on the red clay of Paris (with 9 titles), the French Open has seen 17 different winners out of 29 titles (A.O. - 14; Wimbledon - 12; US Open - 16). Additionally, if we look at solitary title wins at the respective slams, French Open again comes out at the top (10 players with a single French Open title); the corresponding figures for other slams are A.O. - 7, Wimbledon - 6, US Open - 8.

The table below captures the respective GS winners since 1998 from amongst the list of top 29 champions (i.e. players with 5+ GS titles; as described above). Both in terms of number of winning players and no. of titles by those players, the French Open stands out.

Source: Wikipedia

Similarly, the table below captures the number of such GS winners from outside the top 29 champions (i.e. players with < 5 GS titles). It also shows other GS titles captured by these winners (i.e. outside the respective Open). On this parameter, French Open and Wimbledon stand out but Wimbledon has the least number of unique winners and most proportion of winners from Top 29. In other words, there are some one Slam wonders amongst Wimbledon winners but they are far lower in comparison to various champion players who've won multiple titles.

  

Top contenders at Paris

Between 2005 and 2014, Rafael Nadal won 9 out of the 10 French Open titles. Over the last two years, however, we've had two first-time champions - Stan Wawrinka in 2015 and Djokovic in 2016. Will we see the trend continue in 2017? Or will the 9-time champion regain his stranglehold on The Musketeers' Trophy?

Nadal remains the top contender for this year's French Open. He's won 3 of the 4 major clay court tournaments leading up to Roland Garros. In the course of his 3 titles (Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid), he lost just two sets. His 2017 nemesis, Federer, isn't playing. He'll face stiff challenge from the other two strong contenders, Djokovic and Dominic Thiem, who are both in his half of the draw (bottom half). Thiem is on a high, stringing together a 17-4 clay court record and has been the only player to overcome Rafa on clay this year. He reached the finals both at Barcelona and Madrid, losing to the Spanish giant on each occasion, before he finally overcame Nadal in the quarters at Rome. The 6th seed, Thiem was also a semi-finalist at Roland Garros last year and makes a strong case as the no. 2 contender.

The 2nd ranked Djokovic hasn't had a great year on clay. He's racked up an ordinary 8-3 record on clay but his performances have shown a gradual improvement. After losing to Goffin in the quarters at Monte-Carlo, he reached the semis at Madrid (lost to Nadal) and then the finals at Rome (lost to Alexander Zverev). The defending champion has inducted Andre Agassi as his coach, plus his pedigree on clay as well as recent record against Nadal (4-2 on clay and 9-2 overall since 2014) would definitely make him one of the strongest contenders. He's drawn to meet Thiem in the quarters and Nadal in the semis, in a heavily-loaded bottom half. The bottom half also has some dangerous floaters in Goffin, Ramos-Vinolas and Dimitrov.  

The top half of the draw contains, in my view, the two dark horses of this year's open. Alexander Zverev has put together a very impressive win-loss record of 16-3 on clay, with two titles including the ATP Masters 1000 Rome (Italian Open), defeating Djokovic in the finals. He's entered Top 10 for the first time (going in to Roland Garros as world no. 10) and is set to better his 2016 win-loss record. He's slated to start against Verdasco in the first round, and occupies the same quarter of the draw as Berdych and world no. 1, Murray, but I expect him to make it to the semis this year. Last but not the least, is the world no. 3 and 2015 champion, Stan Wawrinka. His overall win-loss record this year is an ordinary 16-8 while his record on clay is 6-3. Stan has always blown hot, blown cold outside grand slams. However, in grand slams, since the beginning of 2015, he's won two, reached the semis of four others as well as the quarters at one. Across five sets and towards the latter part of a grand slam tournament, Stan is as good as any of the Big Four. That's why, in my view, he should be considered as a very strong contender. Watch out for Pablo Cuevas and Fabio Fognini in the top half - they could cause some upsets.

Between 2001 and 2004, Roland Garros witnessed four different champions. And none of them won another grand slam outside French Open. Will we see a new champion emerge this year? Or will the hegemony of the Big Four + Wawrinka, continue? The 2nd Sunday of June will have the answers!