Monday's schedule at Roland Garros brings the top women's seeds into action, with several first-round matchups carrying more weight than the draw might suggest. Elina Svitolina, who arrives in Paris riding the momentum of her Rome title, faces an uncomfortable opener against Anna Bondar - the Hungarian who has beaten her twice in recent months including a straight-sets win in Madrid. Top contenders Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina should face more straightforward paths against Emerson Jones and Veronika Erjavec respectively, while Jasmine Paolini draws Dayana Yastremska in what shapes up as the most competitive clash of the day. The schedule also features several in-form dark horses, with Anastasia Potapova, Daria Kasatkina and freshly crowned Rabat champion Petra Marcinko all looking to carry their clay court momentum into the second Grand Slam of the season
Rybakina and Swiatek to start against outsiders
Top title contenders kick-off their Roland Garros campaign on Monday, as Elena Rybakina and Iga Swiatek start against the opponents who should not cause them much trouble. The Australian Open champion plays against the world number 85 - Veronika Erjavec. The 26 years-old Slovenian has a 37-17 record on clay in the ranking period of 52 weeks, but most of this is earned in Challenger and ITF circuit with no single WTA main draw victory in 2026 so far. Rybakina has moved from hard courts to clay in a smooth manner, winning the WTA 500 in Stuttgart. Then, she faced upsets in Madrid an Rome, but lost to in-form players like Anastasia Potapova and Elina Svitolina there.
Swiatek plays against the 17 years-old Emerson Jones. The young Australian got wild card to main draw. She did not play on clay this season yet and it's her third Grand Slam appearance after losing twice in first rounds of Australian Open in this and previous season. The Pole looks forward to thrive on the venue where she celebrated four Grand Slam titles so far. The momentum is uprising for the Pole who lives a disappointing season as for her standards, but made into first semifinals of the year in Rome two weeks ago.
Tricky start for Svitolina
Elina Svitolina surely needs to be also considered as one of the tournament's favorites after her stunning run in Rome, where she claimed her third trophy at Foro Italico with three consecutive victories against world number 2, 3 and 4 in decisive stages. Svitolina fought hard for her triumph and even despite playing against unseeded opponent in first round, her match is surely the one to follow on Monday. Svitolina faces Anna Bondar who made two consecutive upsets over the Ukrainian in recent months. Bondar eliminated Svitolina in US Open 2025 and defeated the current world number 7 by 6-3 6-4 in Madrid last month. This sort of unpleasant match-up is surely a challenge for the 31 years-old who can feel some sort of pressure, being one of title contenders with her great series of 29-7 including 8 matches won out of 10 played on clay this season.
Well known names looking for bounce back
A few players ranked in top 20 live the difficult time on court in recent weeks, waiting for the breakthrough on Grand Slam stage. Jasmine Paolini has dropped out of top 10 after being there consistently for two years. The Italian has won just half of 20 main draw matches played in 2026 and waits for two consecutive victories since Indian Wells. Her Rome title defense ended up on round of 32 and resulted with a slide down to 13th place in rankings. Paolini had not much of luck in the draw, meeting with Dayana Yastremska in first round. The world number 45 won just two matches on clay in WTA Tour this season, but comes there fresh off winning the WTA 125 in Parma. This was a very stacked field as for challenger, as Yastremska defeated names like Jessica Bouzas Maneiro and Barbora Krejcikova to clinch the trophy - the highlight of her season so far. That makes a big confidence boost for the Ukrainian before the match which looks like a most intriguing clash to follow tomorrow.
Ekaterina Alexandrova and Liudmila Samsonova will try to recover after disappointing run of results. Alexandrova won just 2 out of last 10 matches played, Samsonova performed not much better with just 3 wins in the same sample. Alexandrova plays against Camila Osorio ranked 77th who was a semifinalist in Parma and quarterfinalist in Rabat, having a few recent wins under her belt. Samsonova sets up interesting match-up against Jil Teichmann. The Swiss has made 7 months of break from competition and came back to play on clay with the most recent run into semifinals in Rabat, losing to eventual champion Petra Marcinko.
Karolina Muchova has performed way better than the names mentioned above, but the Roland Garros finalist from 2023 has rarely played since making into final of WTA 500 in Stuttgart. Muchova played just one match in Rome since than and competes against Anastasia Zakharova tomorrow, playing for first match victory since 5 weeks.
Dark horses to watch on Monday
On the flip side, a few players have made their breakthrough during clay swing. Anastasia Potapova is one of the revelations from recent weeks. The Austrian citizen made into semifinals of Madrid as a lucky loser, was finalist in WTA 500 Linz and came back to top 30 of WTA rankings. Potapova starts against Maya Joint who will have a really tough task to do in goal to stop the rot of 9 consecutive defeats since the mid of January.
Daria Kasatkina has really liked to play on clay in May. The former world number 8 has won the WTA 125 in La Bisbal D'Emporda and followe this with a run into quarterfinals in WTA 500 Strasbourg, starting from qualies. With a run of 9 wins in last 11 matches, Kasatkina starts against Zenyep Sonmez who managed to win main draw matches in Stuttgart, Madrid and Rome, so we can expect some good quality in this match.
Petra Marcinko will try to break the well-known curse of the champs from Grand Slam preceeding week. The 20 years-old Croatian has won her maiden WTA 250 title in Rabat after previous 12 titles on Challenger and ITF level. The 20 years-old seeks for second Grand Slam match victory after first one gained in Australian Open four months ago. Marcinko plays against the world number Eva Lys.
Former champs from Roland Garros wait for some breakthrough. Qinwen Zheng won the Olympics gold medal there two years ago and is now still on the recovery road from the ongoing elbow injury. The Chinese dropped out of top 50 in the rankings, but won three matches combined in Madrid and Rome. Zheng plays against the qualifier from Poland - Maja Chwalinska. Her conqueror from Rome - Jelena Ostapenko, made a very good run there, advancing into quarterfinals. The 2017 Roland Garros champion starts as a favorite against Ella Seidel and looks forward to the potential third round's clash against Iga Swiatek who did not manage to defeat the Latvian in any of their 6 previous meetings so far.
