French Open 2019: Corretja and Wilander explain why the men’s draw is more open than ever

That might seem like a counter-intuitive argument given that Rafa Nadal has dominated the men’s draw since winning his first title in 2005.

Since that victory Nadal has won ten more title out of the thirteen tournaments and he is a strong bet to lift title number 12 in Paris over the next few weeks.

However despite this both Corretja and Wilander, who will work as pundits for Eurosport during the tournament, believe this year there are plenty of potential challengers to Nadal’s throne.

“I think the men’s draw is the most open that I can remember. There was always somebody who could beat Rafa themselves but not 15, 20 guys and I feel going into the tournament there are most probably 20 guys that, whoa, these are tough matches on paper.“ Wilander said.

“I think this younger generation that has come up, they are opposing a serious threat with all of them, Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Auger Alliassime, obviously Zverev to a certain degree still I think is a big threat and Thiem is kind of in between but yes, there are more guys that can worry the best players and there are more match ups that I’m interested in seeing.

“Like I know that Tsitsipas can hit through these guys and come to the net, I know that Medvedev can hit these heavy low balls that will just drive you insane if it’s on a wet moist cold day in Paris and I think I’m talking about both Novak and Rafa in that situation.

“I think there are a lot of the guys who feel when the green light is on I can actually go out and threaten these guys even in five sets on clay. At least that’s the way it looks when I see them play.”

Corretja agrees saying “I said it before but I can really see that Rafa and Novak are a little bit above the others but I see that Thiem is getting very close to them. I think Tsitsipas is improving so much, I think Del Potro is always tough to beat, there’s Roger back, let’s say Wawrinka how he’s going to get there, it depends how he plays, it will be important to see how he plays this week also.

“So it’s going to be very interesting and also whoever they face in the third and fourth round is going to dictate a little bit the tournament because they are not as fresh, you know.

“Rafa has been playing a lot in the clay court season and Novak finished in Rome quite exhausted so he needs to recover very well so if he has a very rough first week that can really hurt him but I still see that they are the two most dangerous guys, well not dangerous but the two most in form or in good shape.”

The French Open begins on Sunday and you can watch every ball live on Eurosport.