Roland Garros gets underway on Sunday, and the Americans take the court with No. 7 seed Taylor Fritz opens against fellow American Nishesh Basavareddy, while Tomas Machac and Zizou Bergs square off in what should be one of the better early-round matchups.
(7) Taylor Fritz vs. (W) Nishesh Basavareddy
There are questions surroundingTaylor Fritz heading into Roland Garros, many of them concerning his knee. Chronic tendinitis kept the seventh seed off the tour after Miami, forcing him to skip Monte-Carlo, Munich, Madrid, and Rome before returning at Geneva last week. That comeback lasted exactly one match, a 6-4, 6-4 first-round loss to Alexei Popyrin on the dirt. Across the net he’ll find Nishesh Basavareddy, a former Stanford standout who earned his wildcard through the USTA’s Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge and has climbed from outside the top 400 to around 156th in the world over the past two years.
Fritz owns a massive serve and will look to lean on it to limit rallies on the slow red clay. He has posted the highest ace rate on tour in 2026 at 18.6%, but how effective that weapon is after a two-month layoff, with a compromised knee, against a hungry wildcard is a genuine question. Fritz has never gotten past the fourth round in nine appearances at Roland Garros, and Basavareddy can do real damage in long exchanges. Look for the seventh seed to advance, but not comfortably.
Cheryl pick: Fritz in 4
Tomas Machac vs. Zizou Bergs
Neither Tomas Machac nor Zizou Bergs is seeded, but this first-round draw could pass for a quarterfinal somewhere else on the calendar. Machac, the Czech ranked 40th, won the title in Adelaide in January over Ugo Humbert and is 5-4 on clay going into Paris. Bergs, the Belgian, reached a career-high ranking of 38th earlier this month and is 7-6 on clay in 2026. The head-to-head is 2-1 in Bergs’s favor, though the most recent meeting went convincingly to Machac, a 6-1, 6-2 win back in 2022.
Machac withdrew from his second-round match in Rome against Daniil Medvedev prior to taking the court, which is a mild fitness flag, but nothing points to a serious issue heading into Paris. On paper these players are nearly even, and Bergs has been the busier clay-court operator this season. But Machac’s ceiling is higher when his ball-striking is on. I’m giving the nod to the Czech.
Cheryl pick: Machac in 4