I don’t plan on doing too many previews, but here’s the first.  The French Open unlike other tournaments opens play on a Sunday.  This allows them to schedule their rounds better and to have 3 Sundays, presumably to make more money.

Let’s look at a few key matches.

I’ll follow the convention that Wikipedia sets.  There are 8 sections.  Sections 1-4 are the top half of the draw, with 1 playing 2, 3 playing 4 in the quarterfinals.  Sections 5-8 are the bottom half.  Federer is the top seed and is in Section 1.  Nadal is the second seed and is in Section 8.

Robin Soderling (SWE) v. Laurent Recouderc (FRA) The two haven’t “officially” met before.  However, that’s because Challenger and Future events don’t count to one’s official ATP head-to-head record.  You must be at least at the ATP 250 for your record to count.  The two met way back in 2003 and Soderling won easily.  The two are the same age.  Recouderc is ranked 179 and was a wildcard (he’s French).  Should be an easy Soderling win.  Given his first round loss in Australia, this should be a nice change of pace.  This match is in Section 2.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) v. Daniel Brands (GER) These two have never met.  Brands is ranked 89 in the world and is a relatively tall 6’5″.  Age-wise, he’s pretty young at 22.  Tsonga is generally good for a few rounds and should play better in front of a home crowd even though he’s never done better than the fourth round at his home tournament.  Last year, he fell to Juan Martin del Potro in the fourth round.  Should be an easy win for Tsonga.  Brands has been mostly playing Challenger events winning one and runner up in the other one, but he has had no victories against anyone ranked above 100.

Marin Cilic (CRO) vs. Ricardo Mello (BRA) These two have never met.  Mello is 29 years old and turned pro in 1999.  He is ranked 91.  He has primarily played Challengers.  Unlike Brands, he has had some quality victories.  In Costa Do Sauipe, Brazil, he beat Hanescu and Bellucci before losing to Ferrero.  Again, probably should be an easy victory for Cilic.   Mello is relatively short at 5’9″ and is a lefty.  Cilic was expected to have a good year and reached the semis of the Australian Open, but has fared so-so this year.  He won in Croatia and got to the finals of Munich, but hasn’t played tremendous tennis on clay.

Ernests Gulbis (LAT) vs. Julien Benneteau (FRA) This is a tough opening round.  Benneteau just barely missed getting seeded.  Outside of the favorites (Nadal and Federer), one popular dark horse is Ernests Gulbis.  Although his victory over Federer was impressive, what was more impressive was taking Nadal to a third set, and more than that, getting to the quarterfinals of Madrid to play Roger Federer again.  This shows some level of consistency that Gulbis has lacked in the past.  Benneteau has had only two victories on clay this year: against Sam Querrey in the first round of Rome and against Dolgopolov in Monte Carlo.  His best performances so far have been on hard courts, a finalist in Marseille (losing to countryman Llodra) and a semifinalist in Sydney (losing to Gasquet).  Should be a comfortable win for Gulbis.

Other seeds playing on Sunday.  Mikhail Youzhny plays Michal Przysiezny of Poland.  Guillermo Garcia-Lopez plays Rainer Schuettler (who once reached the finals of the Aussie Open).  Garcia-Lopez is the 32nd seed.

None of the top 4 seeds (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray) play on Sunday.