On Rafael Nadal
Normally you would say: 'Nadal has won three out of four clay court tournaments.' That didn't happen this year. He won a smaller tournament with Barcelona and now finally Rome - Stefano Tsitsipas won in Monte-Carlo and Sascha Zverev in Madrid. You have to say quite clearly that the other players have caught up a bit there - or the other way around: Nadal will be 35 years old at the beginning of June. There is no tournament that is physically more demanding than Roland-Garros. Maybe it's already the first sign of the times with Nadal that he's half a step slower or gets tired a little faster than before. In the end, you can also see that in the results: He also had a hard time in Rome and Barcelona. You don't know that from Nadal like that.

On Daniil Medvedev
It will certainly be difficult to achieve success if you already say that you hate clay courts during the match. His results are accordingly. I can understand that better than anyone, even though I didn't hate clay. I was looking forward to the spring and the tournaments in Monte-Carlo, Hamburg and Rome, but I wasn't quite as good as on other surfaces. Still, I enjoyed playing on clay and won tournaments there in junior and doubles, but just not a big tournament in singles."

On Roger Federer
He can't have the expectation to be one of the favourites for Paris. He was injured for too long and didn't play for a long period of time. He now has to get back to his top form. That can only be done through matches. You can play like a world champion in practice, the first round will always be tough. I would have liked him to play more tournaments beforehand, because you don't get better in practice. His goal is to win another Grand Slam tournament. I think he has the best chance at Wimbledon - and therefore he has to play in Paris.

Roger simply needs matches, matches, matches. I hope he gets into the second week at Roland-Garros. Then I'm convinced that he'll play a grass court tournament before Wimbledon in Halle. The fact that the distance to Wimbledon is now a week shorter won't bother him. It's more of an advantage to know you're going into a tournament every week and then hopefully arrive at Wimbledon in your best shape.

On Novak Djokovic
He has changed his tournament schedule this year. The tournament in Belgrade is organized by his brother. Maybe it's a kind of family support to play there - then I could understand it. Nevertheless, it is unusual because the top players are usually already in Paris the week before Roland-Garros and prepare for the tournament on site. Whether this unusual way was right, we will only see when he has played the first round in Paris and hopefully won.

On Alexander Zverev
No player can rule out a period of weakness. Zverev lost early in Monte-Carlo and Munich, but then turned things around. When he won the title in Madrid, he beat Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem and Matteo Berrettini - and he also played well in Rome and should have taken a set against Nadal in the quarterfinals. Zverev is back where he needs to be to be among the favorites in Paris. He has now also taken the time to prepare for the French Open, which I think is good. Zverev has the chance to get further than the quarterfinals, which is his previous record at Roland-Garros. But then he has to win matches when he's not playing so well, because with up to seven matches in the course of a Grand Slam tournament, that's definitely going to happen. In the past he has lacked experience here and there and I hope he has learned from that. The match against Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, for example, was very good and it was clear that the winner of the match would also win the tournament. With Zverev, it's just little things in the game, but he needs the belief that he can beat Djokovic.

On the Next Gen and next Grand Slam winners
Of course it annoys Novak when he is constantly asked who the successors of Roger, Rafa and him are, although they are - as in Rome - currently still the winners. Stefano Tsitsipas has played a very consistent season and won another clay court tournament in Geneva at the weekend. He won in Monte-Carlo and was in the semifinals at the Australian Open - so he has shown absolute world-class performances throughout the year. Maybe he was even better than Sascha Zverev. On clay, he is one of the favorites for the French Open. He's in a tremendous physical shape, has improved his groundstrokes - especially his backhand. I see him very far ahead.

On the favourites for the women's tournament
I would start with Ashleigh Barty, who is playing another very strong and consistent year and has already won in Miami and Stuttgart. Then, of course, I have Iga Swiatek on the bill, who comes to Paris as the defending champion, and has already won in Rome. Personally, I also like the game of Aryna Sabalenka very much. Even though clay is not her strongest surface, she can play well there. Naomi Osaka is always a force to be reckoned with, even though clay is certainly her weakest surface, and she hasn't delivered the best results there yet this year.

Boris Becker is a tennis expert for Eurosport. Watch every match from Roland-Garros on Eurosport and Eurosport App from Sunday 30 May 2021.