Watch out for Azarenka on clay

I think Victoria Azarenka has looked as if everything is clicking together - although it is still a bit too soon to be looking ahead to her chances at Roland Garros.

The French Open is so much about form and how the claycourt season evolves week by week by week and there's a lot of time between now and then.

But for me Azarenka is definitely the one to watch heading into this claycourt season, despite her retirement with a shoulder niggle in Stuttgart last week.

If I had to pick a winner for the French Open right now, and not Kim Clijsters, it would be Azarenka.

I would say that Clijsters is a bit like Serena Williams in that she doesn't need any practice to do well in a Grand Slam. If she comes in to Roland Garros undercooked and unprepared but fit, for me she is the favourite to win it. If she's not fit or doesn't play then it's wide open.

It was great to see Agnieszka Radwanska playing well in Stuttgart again. She played really well and beat Francesca Schiavone easily.

It didn't look as though the spark was there for Schiavone. She was obviously trying very hard and there was no sense that she had lost her 100 per cent commitment approach but it definitely looked like the spark had gone and Radwanska just mopped her up.

When Schiavone won the French Open last year I thought it was going to be a one-off thing but she surprised me after that as she continued to play really well. She played some unbelievable tennis, especially in Australia this year. It was incredible from someone who had achieved her dream and could have been on a swansong for a year.

And so up until about two weeks ago I thought she had a genuine chance of doing it again on clay this year, of defending her title at Roland Garros, because there was no other real favourite and because she has the form and the experience and the talent.

And yet that seems to have coincided with this lack of form. So as we speak right now the jury is out. There is still time for her to get her form back but it looks at though she is going in the wrong direction.

You can never count out Caroline Wozniacki of course. She is playing a little bit more inconsistently than we've seen before but she reached the final in Stuttgart and you can never write her off even though she's never won a Slam and that will be a topic of conversation again the nearer we get to Roland Garros.

I'm not sure about Vera Zvonarea. I see her once again as the nearly person, playing well throughout - but I don't see her as the winner of Roland Garros in a month's time.

Sam Stosur reached the final at Roland Garros last year and the semi-final the year before but her confidence has completely gone this year. It's all mental for her and it can come back in a rush.

So I wouldn't write her off but what I would say about Sam is that whenever the pressure has been at its highest, whether it's the Fed Cup, the Australian Open or the final of the French Open, she has struggled and she's struggled consistently.

Until she proves us wrong, you'd have to think that that's going to happen again. I can't see a repeat of those hurrahs once again from Sam this year.

Of course it could be like last year when someone comes from nowhere to dominate the season - Julia Goerges was fantastic in Stuttgart last week. It might well be that someone comes through unheralded but hits big form at just the right time.

Source : uk.eurosport.yahoo.com