French Open 2015 Draw: Tournament Schedule, Analyzing Stars with Toughest Roads

The 2015 French Open kicks off on Sunday. The draws for season's second major are now set and, as always, some players should be more happy about the road that lies ahead than others. It's a factor that's often overlooked when it comes to determining a Grand Slam champion.

Winning seven straight matches on one of the sport's biggest stages is always a challenge. Getting a tricky draw that forces a top player to fight harder just to reach the latter rounds makes the hill to claim the trophy even steeper to climb.

To check out the complete draw results, visit the event's official site: men's and women's. Now, let's check out the full list of dates for the tournament, which is followed by a closer look at a couple big names with a tough road to the final.

2015 French Open Schedule

Date	Details
May 24	First Round
May 25	First Round
May 26	First Round
May 27	Second Round
May 28	Second Round
May 29	Third Round
May 30	Third Round
May 31	Fourth Round
June 1	Fourth Round
June 2	Quarterfinals
June 3	Quarterfinals
June 4	Women's Semifinals
June 5	Men's Semifinals
June 6	Women's Final
June 7	Men's Final

Top Players with Toughest Draws

Men's Side: Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal captured the French title in nine of the past 10 years. It's a remarkable run of success that allows him to stand alone with the most Roland Garros championships in history. Getting his 10th this time around would be quite a feat given the draw he faces.

The biggest cause for the difficult road is his drop in seeding. The Spaniard is normally a stalwart inside the top four alongside Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Injuries and mediocre form have caused his ranking to slide.

He's seeded sixth in the tournament. Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated notes the unusual nature of seeing him that low:

Nadal has lacked his usual dominant showings on clay, too. He sports a 17-5 mark on the surface this season, which is the record of a mere mortal. Normally he performs more like a superhuman once the clay-court season begins.

The 14-time major champ hasn't shied away from it. Christopher Clarey of the New York Times passed along his explanation as to why:

In the big picture, he's in the same quarter of the draw as Djokovic and the same half as Murray. So if he gets to the business end of the tournament, the last three rounds are very likely going to be a major mountain to climb.

The difficulty starts even before that, though. In the second round he would face Nicolas Almagro or Alexandr Dolgopolov. Either one represents a serious test, especially if Nadal is still trying to work his way toward his usual level of play.

Ultimately, there are a lot of hurdles he's going to need to jump. It's certainly impossible to count him out completely given his track record, but the draw didn't do him any favors.

Women's Side: Serena Williams

The women's draw is actually pretty well balanced. Most of the contenders received reasonable paths and should be able to make deep runs if their form is good enough. While some of that is luck of the draw, the lack of depth obviously has an impact, as well.

Knowing that, Serena Williams probably has the trickiest road among the top players. She should advance through the first couple of rounds with relative ease. Then things get much tougher starting in Round 3 and, barring some upsets, there won't be any easy matches from that point forward.

The tough stretch would start with Victoria Azarenka, and the other half of the section features her sister Venus Williams and fellow American Sloane Stephens. They play each other in the opening round and the winner could be Serena's fourth-round foe.

Scott Stevenett of the Championship Point blog illustrates exactly how difficult the road will be if the seeds hold:

The good news for Serena is it sounds like she's getting close to full strength again. Matt Cronin of Tennis Reporters provided her comments about recovering from an elbow injury:

Here's the bottom line: Serena is the best player on the WTA Tour. Furthermore, when she's playing her absolute best tennis, the gap between her and everybody else is quite large. So she can overcome a bad draw and still win an event.

That said, her two French Open titles are the least at any major (next lowest is five at Wimbledon) and she enters the tournament off the aforementioned injury. Add in a tough projected road to the final and her status as the favorite isn't as overwhelming.

It will be interesting to see if she can rise to the occasion after the next couple weeks.