The second major of the tennis season begins Sunday at Roland Garros. While the French Open qualifiers are underway, the sport’s major stars are waiting and preparing for the two-week competition.

Ash Barty will not be present after announcing her retirement in the weeks following her win at the Australian Open. Since then, several stars have stepped into the spotlight, and none more forcefully than Iga Świątek, who is riding a 28-match win streak into Roland Garros.

With Świątek leading the way, Just Women’s Sports has the top five players to watch as the French Open kicks off.

Iga Świątek

There is no hotter player on tour heading into the French Open than Iga Świątek. Since Barty walked away from the game in March, the 20-year-old has firmly cemented herself as the No. 1 player in the world.

Just the second player to win four WTA 1000 trophies in a single season, after Serena Williams, Świątek most recently claimed her fifth consecutive title at the Italian Open over the weekend. She’s won every WTA 1000 event she’s competed in this season, earning trophies at Doha, Indian Wells, Miami and Rome. During her 28-game win streak, she’s dropped just five sets. The run includes 12 bagel sets, in which Świątek won 6-0, and 10 sets won by a score of 6-1.

It’s not as if the quality of Świątek’s opponents has been lacking, either. Of the 28 matches, 21 were against players in the top 50, 11 were against those in the top 20 and seven against opponents in the top 10. The Polish player has been dominant in all facets, winning 72.6 percent of her service games and 55.3 percent of her return games. Świątek’s only Grand Slam title came at the French Open in 2020, and she enters this year’s tournament as the player to beat.

🇮🇹5!!!#backtoback pic.twitter.com/SBk57wAH6R

— Iga Świątek (@iga_swiatek) May 15, 2022

Ons Jabeur

Heading into the final of the Italian Open on Sunday, where Ons Jabeur lost to Świątek, the Tunisian had been on an 11-match win streak of her own. The match was Jabeur’s second straight finals appearance after she defeated Jessica Pegula to win the Madrid Open the week prior.

Jabeur is just the fourth player to appear in both the Madrid and Rome finals in the same year, joining Dinara Safina from 2009, Serena Williams from 2013 and Simona Halep from 2017.

Entering the French Open with a career-high No. 6 world ranking, Jabeur has found success with her serve, winning 70.2 percent of her service points. She’s also recorded 106 aces, good for third among the world’s top 10. With 17 victories on clay this year, the 27-year-old has more wins on the surface than anyone else on tour and will be in her element at the French Open.

Bianca Andreescu

There might not be a more exciting player outside of the top 50 than Andreescu based on the way she’s playing right now. The 2019 U.S. Open champion returned to action at Stuttgart in April, playing in her first professional-level tennis match in seven months, and has been on a tear since then. In Madrid, she dismantled reigning Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins in straight sets. Through her first three tournaments of the season, Andreescu has won six of her nine matches on clay — including a quarterfinal run in Rome, where she fell to Świątek.

The Canadian entered Stuttgart last month ranked No. 121 in the world and has since climbed her way back up the rankings. Rising 18 spots after her finish at Rome, Andreescu heads into Roland Garros as the No. 72-ranked player. She is also one of the few players who has seemingly given Świątek any trouble this season. The 21-year-old took Świątek to break point in their first set in Rome before falling in straight sets.

Andreescu, once the No. 4 player in the world, has returned to form since opting out of the Australian Open to focus on her mental health, and the French Open is a chance for her to make a statement.

Danielle Collins

Danielle Collins has had a strong start to the year, climbing into the top 10 for the first time after making the Australian Open final, where she lost to Ash Barty. She’s dropped a spot since premiering at No. 8 in the world, having dealt with some ups and downs. The American lost to Andreescu in straight sets in Madrid before turning around and defeating Simona Halep in straight sets in the Round of 32 at the Italian Open. 

While she’s better on hard surfaces, Collins has had notable wins on clay, including at the 2021 Palermo Ladies Open. In last year’s French Open, Collins made it to the Round of 32, where she lost to Serena Williams in straight sets. She’s gained momentum since then, taking a 5-1 lead over Barty in the second set of the Australian Open final before Barty came roaring back.

If Collins can find her groove at Roland Garros, she’ll have as good a shot as any top-10 player at taking home the trophy.

Simona Halep

This will be Simona Halep’s first major since she hired new coach Patrick Mouratoglou. The coach is best known for his 10-year stint with Serena Williams, during which time she won 10 Grand Slam titles and completed the career Golden Slam.

I am now the full-time coach of @Simona_Halep. pic.twitter.com/MRlkmeJyhw

— Patrick Mouratoglou (@pmouratoglou) April 7, 2022

Halep has also had success in Grand Slams in the past decade. She won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019. The former world No. 1 also made the final of the Australian Open in 2018 and the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 2015.

The Romanian started the year off well, reaching the semifinals at Indian Wells before losing to Świątek in a close two-set match. She later withdrew from Miami, Charleston and the Fed Cup with a thigh injury. She made her return at the Madrid Open, where she took down world No. 3 Paula Badosa in straight sets in the Round of 32 and advanced to the quarterfinals. With those results, Halep soared back into the top 20 at No. 19.

If Halep continues to gain confidence as she works her way back from the injury, there’s no limit to what she can achieve in France.

Emma Hruby is an Associate Editor at Just Women’s Sports.

The NWSL has made a decision, as the league officially moves forward with its new "High Impact Player" rule despite stated opposition from the players union.

Announced last week, the rule change allows clubs to exceed to the NWSL salary cap by up to $1 million to attract or retain players that meet one of eight qualifying metrics set by the league.

Those metrics include major media award rankings like the 30-player Ballon d'Or shortlist and ESPN FC's Top 50 Football Players, as well as marketing power, top USWNT minutes, and end-of-year NWSL awards.

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Developed with Washington Spirit superstar — and current free agent — Trinity Rodman and her potential contract in mind, the "High Impact Player" rule will not go into effect until July 1st, 2026.

Meanwhile, the NWSLPA has spoken out against the mechanism, proposing instead to up the salary cap by $1 million without league-imposed spending regulations.

"Under federal labor law, changes to compensation under the salary cap are a mandatory subject of bargaining — not a matter of unilateral discretion," the union wrote on Wednesday.

Additionally, per The Athletic, NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke expressed concerns that the rule ties top athlete pay, in part, to player valuations in third party publications — a move that externally defines who a club can consider "high impact."

Led by six Kansas City athletes and five from Gotham FC, just 27 current NWSL players across 10 of the 16 clubs in the expanded 2026 season meet the new HIP qualifying criteria — though all teams could use the mechanism to attract a new athlete to the league.

In a growing global market, the NWSL could be falling into a trap of half-measures, as the union pushes back with league parity potentially on the line.

The Kansas City Current have apparently found a new manager, with ESPN reporting last week that the 2025 NWSL Shield-winners will bring on former MLS head coach Chris Armas to lead the team in 2026.

Armas built his career in the MLS, coaching the New York Red Bulls from 2018 to 2020 before taking over Toronto FC in 2021, then spending the last three years heading up the Colorado Rapids.

The ex-USMNT player also has experience in the women's game at the college level, leading the Division II Adelphi University women's soccer team from 2011 to 2014.

Despite their many victories in 2025, the Current found themselves without a coach after third-year boss Vlatko Andonovski moved into a sporting director role with the club in November.

ESPN reported that Kansas City chose Armas over internal candidates like assistants Milan Ivanovic and ex-Angel City and Gotham manager Freya Coombe.

"I want my staff and people I've worked with to become successful coaches. These are things I'm very passionate about and want to be able to execute," Andonovski told ESPN last month.

Armas would be the first former MLS coach to make the leap to the NWSL, with the winds of change in Kansas City blowing stronger than anticipated.

With the 2026 Winter Olympics fast approaching, US skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin has started the 2025/26 FIS World Cup cycle in top form — particularly in her favored slalom event.

Closing out last season with a victory, Shiffrin is currently on a multi-event winning streak, earning her sixth straight slalom title in Semmering, Austria, on Sunday.

"It was a really hard day today, tough conditions, a really big fight, and the pressure's on… I did my best, best possible run," Shiffrin said afterwards.

Momentum is on her side, with Shiffrin set to enter the 2026 Winter Games in Italy as the winningest skier in World Cup history, surpassing Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark's 86 wins in March 2023 and becoming the first skier to reach 100 World Cup victories earlier this year.

Sunday's race marked the 30-year-old's 106th career World Cup title, with Shiffrin looking to add to her ever-growing historic record with three more slalom events scheduled before the Olympic women's Alpine skiing events kick off on February 8th.

The 2014 Olympic slalom champion and 2018 Winter Games giant slalom gold medalist is aiming to return to the podium after failing to medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Shiffrin will likely hit the slopes again next weekend, when the women's FIS World Cup lands in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, for a giant slalom and slalom competition.

South Carolina basketball is stocking up, as top-ranked high school senior Jerzy Robinson announced her commitment to join the head coach Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks last Tuesday.

"I chose South Carolina because I had a sense of peace when it came down to the decision for me," Robinson told ESPN. "When I visited South Carolina, I was already home. I was already valued there.... I felt like this was where I needed to be for the next four years."

A 6-foot-2 guard who averaged 27 points and 10.2 rebounds in her junior season at Los Angeles's Sierra Canyon High School, Robinson is now the highest-ranked Class of 2026 recruit heading to South Carolina — as well as the final Top 5 player to make a college decision after also visiting No. 1 UConn and No. 5 LSU.

Robinson first made a name for herself at the youth level, winning three gold medals and the 2025 U-19 FIBA World Cup with Team USA.

The young talent also inked one of the first-ever shoe sponsorships for a high school player, signing an NIL deal with Nike in November 2024.

"Basketball has always been my love and my passion," she said. "To see it pay off and the hard work and the hours pay off, in the sense of I get to play for one of the best universities in the country, I just have so much gratitude."