Defending Champions
Men's Singles
Stanislas Wawrinka(Swiss)
Women's Singles
Serena Williams(USA)
Men's Doubles
Ivan Dodig(Croatia) and Marcelo Melo(Brazil)
Women's Doubles
Bethanie Mattek Sands(USA) and Lucie Safarova(Czech)
Mixed Doubles
Bethanie Mattek Sands(USA) and Mike Bryan(USA)
Novak Djokovic will be celebrating his 29th birthday when the French Open starts on Sunday May 22,2016
Novak Djokovic, who has lost the past two finals in Paris and three altogether, is playing his 12th tournament and would set a record for most appearances at Roland Garros before winning the title in the Open era.
Four players — Stan Wawrinka last year, Roger Federer in 2009, Andre Agassi in 1999 and Andres Gomez in 1990 — all won on their 11th appearance.
Goran Ivanisevic holds the Open era Grand Slam record of needing 14 attempts before winning Wimbledon in 2001
Novak Djokovic has won 11 Grand Slams and could yet equal Nadal's haul of 14 by the end of the year.
When Novak Djokovic lost the 2014 French Open final to Nadal, the Spaniard was still the player to beat on clay.
That's now changed. Despite Rafael Nadal winning the Monte Carlo Masters for a ninth time in April and following up with a ninth success at Barcelona to equal Guillermo Vilas' record of 49 career clay-court titles, he is in Djokovic's shadow, even on clay.
Novak Djokovic has beaten him seven consecutive times since that 2014 final — crushing him in three sets in the quarterfinals in Paris last year and beating him twice more on clay, most recently in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open.
Enticingly, they could meet in the semifinals this year, which would be their 50th meeting and on Rafael Nadal's 30th birthday — not that Rafael Nadal needs any extra motivation.
Novak Djokovic leads him 26-23 in head-to-heads and this is his equal-best winning streak against Rafael Nadal, having previously beaten him seven consecutive times — all of them in finals: six in 2011 and then the 2012 Australian Open.
Rafael Nadal won the title at Roland Garros every year from 2005-08 and from 2010-14 — a record nine in all, beating Federer in four of those finals — but returns to town trying to earn back the trophy after relinquishing it in 2015 to Stanislas Wawrinka
Rafael Nadal is seeded fourth.
Despite rain much of the morning, the French Open has started on Sunday May 22,2016
The French Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that begins on a Sunday.
The forecast calls for showers on Sunday, but a break in the weather allowed two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova onto Court Philippe Chatrier to face 59th-ranked Danka Kovinic of Montenegro in a first-round match.
Other players scheduled to play on Day 1 of the clay-court tournament include 2014 US Open runner-up Kei Nishikori, eighth-seeded Milos Raonic, and 2015 Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza.
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