MATS WILANDER PREVIEWS ROLAND-GARROS

Who has the best chance and who will feel under more pressure - Novak Djokovic or Rafa Nadal?
It’s very unfair to say Rafa is always one of the favourites because he has won 13 times, he knows how to play on clay… It’s actually quite unfair and I’ve always thought so, just because of what he did last year and the year before, we should put him amongst the favourites every year. Rafa is like a horse. He will run as hard as he can and as fast as he can and there are no limits physically or emotionally. Someone that hates losing that much, it’s great so this will help him.

It’s also unfair to say Novak Djokovic is not the favourite. I feel like we were just waiting for him to have a good week, maybe win a tournament, then if he does, his confidence will be where it needs to be. He doesn’t care what happened in Monte Carlo, but he has not established himself as the one to beat.

Every time I see Novak play well, I feel there is a freshness to his body, movement and his attitude. There is a freshness with Rafa in terms of tactics and attitude, but you sometimes look at him being a little bit older in the way he decides to spend energy, but he’s just so smart. With Novak, I could have no idea how old he is.

Who do you see as the favourite for Roland-Garros on the men’s side?
I think Novak has to be the favourite. Winning in Rome will be huge for his confidence but Novak also has a feeling of revenge with everything that happened to him over the past few months that will give him strength. He is defending the French Open after not being able to play at the Australian Open so that’s huge as well. Now that he’s shown he can play tough matches, huge matches, even though he lost to Alcaraz in Madrid, he has shown he can play for a long time. In Monte Carlo, he looked bad in his match in the end with Davidovich. He looked bad, tired but suddenly now he looks much better.

I put Djokovic first. Then Tsitsipas, Zverev and Alcaraz. Then a group after – Rafa probably on his own. I don’t think you can put him in a group until we know he is physically 90% fit. At the moment, Nadal is in the category whether we don’t even know if he will play. So the pressure will come just on being fit enough to play.

How do you compare Carlos Alcaraz and Rafa Nadal at 19-years-old?
I think Alcaraz has more variety. And I think that's what we are all a little bit surprised over that he's able to play with a lot of variety and of course, the variety for him is power, and then also finesse, drop shots. I mean, I don't really see him playing with the different spins on the backhand yet. Getting slices and hitting long and hitting flat. I don't think he's there yet, but in terms of the the drop shots and the power, I think he probably knows more than Rafa knew at 19.

I can understand Rafa more, because he said this is how I play. And I'm going to find the best way to play the way I want to play. And I'm going to find the best way to play my opponent, whereas Alcaraz says a little bit more.  Okay, this is what I kind of need to do. The guy is far behind, I'm gonna hit some drop shots.

If you are too close to the baseline, then Carlos is going to play with power, and a little bit of height and push the guy back.  So I think that Carlos is willing to do a few more things. But I'm not saying that that's better. Sometimes the simplest players, when they're young, are the ones that are the best because they don't have that many options or they don't want to use that many options.

Do you think anyone can challenge Iga Swiatek in the women’s draw and have you been impressed since she claimed that world no.1 ranking?
If it was five sets, I would say Iga Swiatek is always the big, big favourite because the level she would play at over five sets, she would always be the big favourite. Because it’s three sets, there are a lot of women that can come out and play unbelievably for 45 minutes to an hour and in that time they could leave Swiatek 6-3 or up a break and suddenly we now need a little bit of luck to turn the match around. Because it’s three sets, I say she’s the favourite for sure, but it’s much more difficult to consistently be the favourite over three sets. Iga still needs good starts in matches whereas Novak does not need a good start in any match and after one, two hours, he will slowly become the favourite over a match that will last a minimum of three hours. With Iga it could last one hour and she might not have found her form that day.

She is the favourite for sure but because it’s on clay, which is her best surface, but because it’s on clay I think there are not that many women that are as comfortable on clay as there are men. Some of that has to do with movement on clay, where you need to slide to cover the entire court. There are not that many women who are quick enough and strong enough who can slide and defend the whole court. Plan B is playing defensively to cover the whole court, but this is much easier to play on the men’s side.

Mats Wilander is an expert for Eurosport at Roland-Garros. Live coverage of Roland-Garros starts on Sunday 22 May on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport App.