4. Elina Svitolina — The Never-Give-Up Queen
WTA Rank: 7
Previous Power Ranking: 5
Svitolina is the freshest name in these WTA Power Rankings and perhaps the most compelling story of the entire clay swing. She won the Rome title, beating Gauff in the final, and the victory pushed her up to #7 in the WTA rankings and into the top three of the Race to Riyadh. She has been quietly dismantling Top 10 opponents all season–she holds a 4-0 record against Top 10 players in 2026, with wins over Swiatek, Gauff, and Mirra Andreeva among them. Svitolina has never been past the quarter-finals in Paris, which is the one caveat, but she arrives with more momentum than almost anyone in the draw and the type of fighting mentality that makes her genuinely dangerous in long matches on a slow surface.
5. Mirra Andreeva — The Teenager Who Lurks
WTA Rank: 8
Previous Power Ranking: 7
Andreeva closes out these WTA Power Rankings as the player who could cause the most chaos from outside the expected conversation. She is still only a teenager, but her Roland Garros record is already quietly remarkable–in her two full clay seasons on the WTA Tour she has reached the semifinals once and the quarterfinals once at the French Open, alongside multiple deep runs in Madrid and Rome. While she might not be playing at the top of her game right now, can you really dismiss someone who has proven in the past that she can? We rather wouldn’t.
6. Marta Kostyuk — The Madrid Champion Arrives in Paris
WTA Rank: 15
Previous Power Ranking: Not ranked
Kostyuk may be the biggest story of the WTA clay season so far, and she carries that momentum directly into Roland Garros. Her Madrid title sent her surging up the rankings to a career-high position, and the Ukrainian has been playing with a freedom and authority that suggests someone who has finally stopped worrying about results and started simply playing tennis. She has the game to hurt Top 10 players on clay–the serve, the aggression, the willingness to take time away from opponents–and in a draw where the top seeds will be accounting for each other, Kostyuk is exactly the player capable of slipping through.
