PREVIEW | Internationaux de Strasbourg 2025: Top field led by Pegula, Raducanu, Rybakina aim to find form

The Internationaux de Strasbourg 2025 will take place between 18-24 May, 2025 with our Preview taking you through all the leading talking points ahead of a vital stop on the run-up to Roland Garros.

A tournament steeped in history saw Madison Keys defeat Danielle Collins in straight sets last year to win her first title. Elina Svitolina has also had great success in the past. She is two-time champion but two out of those three will not return in 2025.

Svitolina has withdrawn late on while Madison Keys will not play this year. It seems to either be a lucky or unlucky curse as Svitolina and Barbora Krejcikova in recent years have had great success in Paris after runs at the now WTA 500.

But Keys and Collins less so as players aim to balance the workload between Madrid, Rome and even prior to that which in the case of Svitolina for instance was Rouen post the Sunshine Double. it is a top field though and is led by a duo of Americans, two Wimbledon champions and a Brit on the rise again.

Jessica Pegula leads the field in Strasbourg. She took the spot after losing in the second round of the Rome Open to Elise Mertens. Coco Gauff has stole her thunder of sorts as of late and has become World No.2 and American No.1 again as of next week.

But given that Pegula in particular has little to nothing to defend until the grass where she starts at Queen's in the second week of June, she is in the box seat of sorts until likely the US Open where she defends a final.

Any helping hand as a result will be good for her to keep up that spot. But also it was a poor trio of tournaments after being touted as perhaps the player to watch out of the top five going into the main clay tournaments. She lost to Moyuka Uchijima in Madrid who was promptly thrashed by Eva Lys in Rome who is having to play qualifying this week and of course Mertens continued her fantastic run over her in Rome.

Albeit perhaps this opening section isn't the most favourable. She will face likely Anna Kalinskaya in the second round who albeit has lost most of their meetings has pushed her considerably including in the Berlin final last year and also recently in Miami.

Then it will likely be the winner of the section that is perhaps the most stacked of the whole tournament as Danielle Collins defending final points faces a back in form Sofia Kenin. Then the winner of that faces another back in form ex Grand Slam champion in Emma Raducanu.

Raducanu will count on Mark Petchey for the foreseeable after it was confirmed that they will be together for the whole of the grass court season with no prior commitments on his end. The coach is similar to Boris Becker perhaps was with Holger Rune where he is in high demand for commentary and isn't fully willing to give that up for coaching unless it is right.

Given the coaching carousel that Raducanu has been on as of late that is perhaps right and just. But she has been full of confidence and goes into this week aiming for more wins.

She reached the Quarter-Final in Miami and the Last 16 in Rome, Petchey seems to be fixing aspects of her game that are hindering her and in particular her fitness to play week on week is improving. She faces Daria Kasatkina though in a super tough opener slated for Monday morning.

Paula Badosa is supposedly close to 100% according to her boyfriend Stefanos Tsitsipas. Whether or not that is true is another matter but the proof will be in the pudding.

She has had to withdraw from the last few tournaments and has been stop start since Merida Open Akron earlier in the year with her crippling back injury which flared up again during the Mexican escapade.

She could face Alize Cornet in the second round who for some reason has decided to return a year on from retiring. They say you can never quite scratch that itch and it seems like that is the case here. Liudmila Samsonova is the seed in her section.

Elena Rybakina also is involved. The Kazakh beat Bianca Andreescu in Madrid and then was promptly beaten by her in Rome quite convincingly in a warning sign that prompted her seemingly to enter this event.

While the game is seemingly still there, the results aren't and she sits in a good section this week to collect wins. With all the off-court drama with her banned coach Stefano Vukov this year, she has not really been able to let her racquet do the talking as such as the results haven't been there.

But ahead of Roland Garros and Wimbledon, she will aim to peak at the right time. Same can be said for Barbora Krecjikova who is defending champion at Wimbledon this summer but has barely played since.

Like a lot of Czech stars, she seems to be struggling constantly with injury. She has not played since the WTA Finals last year so five months in, she finally returns. She faces Magda Linette in her opener.

Then finally we look at Emma Navarro. She won that Merida Open Akron tournament in what was a superb week for the American but has not done much else since. It was the same story last year and she played WTA 125k events in Paris. But she doesn't have that luxury now being a fringe top 10 player.

She lost to Jelena Ostapenko second round in Stuttgart, Donna Vekic also in the same round in Madrid and then same again in Rome as Clara Tauson won through this time. So she is collecting wins but not stacking them.

She has an ok section to do it this time with Beatriz Haddad Maia in no form at all. She likely given the make up of the draw may face Clara Tauson again in the Quarter-Finals. She is a stealth unseeded player and the same can be said for Ashlyn Krueger who will face the winner of that tie. Magdalena Frech likely first for Navarro. So in reality a tough draw for most of the big names.

Often when they enter late to get form, it is a bit of a struggle in reality. But who goes into Roland Garros full of confidence and who flounders in the French warm-up?