While it is the joy of competing than any serious title ambition that drives Venus Williams to the tennis court these days, the 40-year-old will go into Roland-Garros with the regret of finishing runner-up in 2002 and a faint hope of working a miracle this year.

The veteran of 7 Grand Slam championship victories, 5 of which came at Wimbledon, will open her French Open campaign against 33rd-ranked Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova.

Venus Williams has never played Ekaterina Alexandrova before

Apart from the fact that her opponent is 14 years younger than her, Venus has never played the Russian before.

While she only has a single Tour title to show for her exploits, Alexandrova is a spunky opponent who fights her guts out in matches and has already racked up 12 wins against 10 losses this year.

While her career win/loss record stands at 311/186, the Russian has had a fairly decent run on clay this year, with 2 quarter-final finishes at Stuttgart and Strasbourg and a run to the 4th round in Rome.

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She would be keen to take the positives into Roland-Garros and push for the title.

Venus only has 2 wins in 5 matches this season

Venus, on the other hand, hardly has matches under her belt this season, winning just 2 of the 5 fixtures she featured in.

The veteran’s run on clay has been no better, crashing out in the opening round in Madrid after losing to compatriot and Australian Open runner-up Jennifer Brady in straight sets.

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Getting herself in the draw at WTA Parma in the hope of picking up some wins ahead of the French Open, Venus suffered a third-round loss to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia.

The relatively slow surface at Roland-Garros, which requires players to inject pace into their shots, as there’s hardly any off the surface, and do a lot more running around, won’t make the job for the 40-year-old any easier.

Her best chance would be to get serves going and pick those of her opponent early to close out points quicker.

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Though it’s a tough ask for the American, expect her to put up one hell of a fight against the Russian.