A 3rd round for Belinda?

Yesterday on Chatrier, Bencic opened the tournament with a 6–2 6–3 masterclass against Kraus, playing, according to those watching, as if she had never left the tour. Nineteen wins in 2026, a comeback three years after the birth of her daughter Bella, and a No. 11 seed calmly moving toward her projected R16 against Svitolina. Her historical ceiling here is still real, never past the third round in seven appearances. But the 2026 version of the player has very little to do with the one who stopped in 2023.

Yesterday, McNally scored her very first main-draw win at Roland-Garros, coming back from 3–6 0–3 against Tomljanovic to prevail in more than two and a half hours. This clay season, she’s quietly putting together the best clay stretch of her career: R16 in Madrid, a three-set loss to Swiatek in Rome. The tall 1.80m American can mix things up and cause problems, but the gap with a Bencic in this kind of form is structural.