As play begins at the 2012 French Open on the red clay courts at Roland Garros, there are several key matches in both the men’s and women’s draws which are definitely worth following closely.  The matches include:

WOMEN:
•    Alize Cornet versus Jie Zheng
•    Ekaterina Makarova versus Sloane Stephens
•    Simona Help versus Petra Cetkovska
•    Mirjana Lucic versus Svetlana Kuznetsova
•    Karolina Pliskova versus Marion Bartoli
•    Sorana Cirstea versus Li Na
•    Lauren Davis versus Mona Barthel
•    Francesca Schiavone versus Kimiko Date-Krumm
•    Ashleigh Barty versus Petra Kvitova
•    Lucie Hradecka versus Julia Goerges


MEN:
•    Andreas Seppi versus Nikolay Davydenko
•    Gilles Simon versus Ryan Harrison
•    Xavier Malisse versus Brian Baker
•    Viktor Troicki versus Thomaz Bellucci
•    Nicolas Mahut versus Andy Roddick
•    Arnaud Clement versus Alex Bogomolov Jr.
•    Florent Serra versus Feliciano Lopez
•    Michael Llodra versus Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
•    James Blake versus Mikhail Youzhny
•    Tommy Haas versus Filippo Volandri
•    Donald Young versus Grigor Dimitrov
•    Janko Tipsarevic versus Sam Querrey
•    Juan Ignacio Chela versus Marcos Baghdatis