Serena Williams' bombshell pregnancy announcement last month triggered a sequence of events that has left this year's women's draw at Roland Garros wide open and primed for a new champion. The 23-time Grand Slam winner learned she was pregnant just two days before starting a successful assault on January's Australian Open and won't return before next year. The French federation then refused to award Maria Sharapova a wild card for the tournament with the Russian on the comeback trail following a 15-month doping suspension.
"While wild cards can be awarded to players returning from injury, this cannot be the case for those coming back from doping bans," FFT president Bernard Guidicelli said last week when announcing the decision. With Li Na long since retired that means the winners of five of the past six French Opens - Williams (2013, 2015), Sharapova (2012, 2014) and Li (2011) - are absent from the field, while several pretenders to the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen are battling injury and loss of form. Simona Halep, the 2014 runner-up, established herself as arguably the leading challenger by winning the Madrid Open before reaching the Rome final, but an ankle injury has cast doubt over her status. "Arriving early in Paris for treatment," Halep said in an Instagram post on Wednesday. "The MRI scan shows a torn ligament from the fall in Roma.
-AFP, Paris
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