The wait is over: French Open fervour sweeps Paris

Top seeds’ rivals will be looking to create first round shocks when Grand Slam kicks off Sunday

PARIS:

The French Open gets underway at Roland Garros on Sunday without injured 14-time champion Rafael Nadal who is absent for the first time since 2004.

Iga Swiatek, meanwhile, aims to become the first champion to successfully defend the women's title since Justine Henin in 2007.

AFP Sport looks at the top seeds' rivals looking to create first round shocks:

Ranked at 159 in the world, 21-year-old Italian Flavio Cobolli has the unenviable task of taking on world number one and US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz after coming through qualifying at Roland Garros.

Cobolli, who made the quarter-finals on clay in the ATP event at Munich in April, is playing in the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time.

Has already been a champion at Roland Garros – in 2020, he teamed with Switzerland's Dominic Stricker to win the boys' doubles.

A former US Open junior champion, Brazil's Thiago Seyboth Wild is ranked 172 and had to play the qualifiers in Paris.

Back in 2020, when he was still 19, he lifted his maiden ATP title in Santiago by beating Casper Ruud in the final, becoming the tour's first champion born in the 2000s.

Seyboth Wild has been plagued by controversy. He was the first pro tennis player to reveal a Covid diagnosis in 2020 while in 2021 he was reportedly investigated for abuse of a former girlfriend. He denied the allegations, describing them as "fabricated and vengeful".

World number 114 Aleksandar Kovacevic takes on 22-Grand Slam title winner and two-time French Open champion Novak Djokovic – a player he describes as his idol – in the first round. If that wasn't a big enough challenge, the 24-year-old New Yorker will be making his main draw debut at the majors having tried and failed to qualify on three previous occasions at the Slams.

In 2023, Kovacevic, whose parents moved to the US from the former Yugoslavia, has just one win to his name on the main ATP Tour, a first round victory over Jaume Munar at the Miami Masters.

Blessed with a Masters degree in finance, his modest career prize money of $316,500 is small change compared to Djokovic's $167 million.

Cristina Bucsa, a 25-year-old Spaniard, has the unenviable task of facing defending champion and world number one Iga Swiatek in the opening round.

Ranked at 67, the Moldova-born player knows what she's facing after Swiatek thumped her 6-0, 6-1 at the Australian Open in January.

However, Bucsa took heart from making the last 32 of the main draw from qualifying and knocking out former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in the second round.

Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk will face world number two and Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus on Sunday in a highly-charged encounter.

Kostyuk, ranked at 39, is a vociferous opponent of Russians and Belarusians in the sport in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine.

At the US Open last year, the 20-year-old refused to shake hands with former world number one Victoria Azarenka, opting instead for a touch of the Belarusian's racquet.

"If she hates me, OK. I can't do anything about that," said 25-year-old Sabalenka who has yet to progress beyond the third round in Paris.

Sabalenka defeated Kostyuk in Dubai in February 2022, just one week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Kostyuk's best Grand Slam performance came in Paris in 2021 when she made the last 16 where she lost to Iga Swiatek.