French Open Draw: Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka Land in Same Half

PARIS: Coco Gauff will begin her title defence at this year’s French Open by taking on fellow American Taylor Townsend, as per the draw ceremony held in Paris on Thursday.

Aryna Sabalenka, World No. 1 and last year’s runner-up, will open her campaign with a first-round clash against Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro while Kazakh World No. 2 Elena Rybakina, who won this year’s Australian Open, will face Slovenia’s Veronika Erjavec.

Four-time winner Iga Swiatek, seeded third, will meet Australian youngster Emerson Jones in the opening round.

In the upper half of the draw, Sabalenka is projected to meet fourth seed Gauff in the semifinals - a rematch of last year’s summit clash. In the lower half, Swiatek and Rybakina are on a collision course for a final-four match.

Gauff has a potential fourth-round match against 14th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, and a quarterfinal against sixth seed and fellow American Amanda Anisimova.

Anisimova, who reached the French Open semifinals in 2019, takes on local wildcard Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah in her first match of the tournament.

For Sabalenka, a tough test awaits in the fourth round as the Belarusian may be up against either 16th-seeded Japanese Naomi Osaka or 17th-seeded American youngster Iva Jovic. Ninth-seeded Canadian and rising star Victoria Mboko, former Australian Open winner and 19th-seeded American Madison Keys, and fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula all are in Sabalenka’s quarter.

Former World No. 1 Swiatek, who hasn’t won a title since the Korea Open in September last year, could be up against Jelena Ostapenko, 29th-seeded Latvian and 2017 winner of the French Open, in the third round. Ostapenko holds an astonishing 6-0 head-to-head record against the Polish star.

Elina Svitolina, the seventh-seeded Ukrainian who recently won the Italian Open, is projected to meet Swiatek in the quarterfinals. The two players had met in the semifinals in Rome where Svitolina won in three sets.

World No. 2 Rybakina could take on World No. 8 Mirra Andreeva in the quarterfinals. Agencies

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