The 2026 French Open begins Sunday in Paris, and nearly one-third of the women’s slate is set to hit the red clay on the opening day. One of the first-round matches on the schedule sends Francesca Jones against former world No. 10 Beatriz Haddad Maia.
The meeting draws attention because Haddad Maia enters the tournament as a former world No. 10, a marker that still carries weight in a predictions piece built around the women’s first round. For Jones, the matchup is a chance to test herself early against a player with that kind of ranking history, and it is one of the matches being highlighted as the tournament gets underway.
The French Open, played on clay in Paris, starts with a large opening-day slate, and that makes early matchups like Jones against Haddad Maia part of the first impression this year’s event will make. The timing matters because Sunday is not just the start of the tournament, but the day the women’s draw begins to separate the likely favorites from the players trying to force an early upset.
That is where the friction sits in this one. Haddad Maia’s former top-10 status gives the match a clear hierarchy on paper, but first-round matches are where those labels can become irrelevant quickly. The predictions preview, including the breakdown at Francesca Jones favored in French Open first-round meeting with Beatriz Haddad Maia, frames the contest as one of the notable early calls as the women’s tournament opens.
For readers tracking the first round, the larger story is simple: Sunday starts the 2026 French Open, and it starts with a wide section of the women’s field already on court. Jones and Haddad Maia are part of the opening-day rhythm in Paris, and their match is one of the clearest early tests of how the draw may unfold from the outset.
