Netherlands coach Koeman concerned about Timber's World Cup chances, hopeful for Depay

Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman said he is concerned about the possibility of defender Jurrien Timber missing the World Cup football tournament, but hopes that goalscorer Memphis Depay will be ready to participate in the tournament that kicks off next month.

Timber, an Arsenal player, has been out of action since mid-March due to a thigh injury. Koeman said his chances of joining the Dutch squad remain uncertain.

"Jurrien has been dealing with this for a long time. It has been a turbulent journey. He returned to training again to see if he could catch the Champions League final and participate in the World Cup, but the situation does not look promising at the moment," Koeman told Dutch television on Monday.

Koeman expects Depay to return to play in the coming weeks before joining the Dutch national team.

The 32-year-old striker, the Netherlands' all-time top scorer with 55 goals, suffered a thigh injury in late March and has not played for his struggling Brazilian club, Corinthians, since then.

"He still has 3 matches with Corinthians before the national team gathering. He desperately needs to participate in these matches. I assume that will happen, and if things go well, he might play a full 90 minutes in the last match with his club. Then there will be two weeks left until our first match in the World Cup against Japan," Koeman added.

The Netherlands is already missing the efforts of 3 injured players in the World Cup, as they also play against Sweden and Tunisia in Group F.

Defender Matthijs de Ligt, midfielder Jerdy Schouten, and forward Xavi Simons are all absent due to injury.

Jannik Sinner enters the French Open, the second Grand Slam tournament of the year at Roland Garros, as the clear favorite to win the men's singles title since the retirement of Spaniard Rafael Nadal, while setting his sights on completing the set of Grand Slam titles in his career.

The Italian will not have to face Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, whom he defeated in last year's thrilling Roland Garros final, after his great rival's withdrawal due to injury was announced.

Sinner could become the ninth player to win all four major titles, following in the footsteps of Alcaraz, who achieved this feat at the Australian Open earlier this season.

And the world number one's form can only be better, after easily winning the French Open title on Sunday.

Victory in the final over Norway's Casper Ruud, a 24-year-old player, made him only the second player to win all nine Masters 1000 tournaments, after Serbia's Novak Djokovic, who is considered his main rival for the Roland Garros title, which begins on Sunday.

Sinner has won 6 consecutive Masters 1000 titles and is on a record 34-match winning streak at this level, directly without Grand Slams.

It would be surprising if this level does not translate into success on the clay courts of Paris.

Sinner easily reached the final of the 2025 edition without losing a set, before squandering 3 match points, while Alcaraz made a stunning comeback from two sets down to snatch the trophy.

Ruud, who has never managed to win a set against Sinner in 5 previous encounters, has no illusions about the magnitude of the challenge facing the rest of the contenders for the Roland Garros Cup.

"I haven't faced the Big Three at their peak... but I'm sure that Roger (Swiss Federer), Novak, and Rafa, at 25 or 26 years old, would have given other players the same feeling," Ruud said after losing to Sinner 4-6, 4-6 in Rome.

He added about Sinner: "I don't see him declining, unfortunately. You just have to get better and better because he will also get stronger."

Sinner has lost only twice in 10 tournaments since withdrawing due to injury against Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor in Shanghai last September.

Czech Jakub Mensik defeated him in the quarter-finals of the Doha tournament in February, while Djokovic produced a classic performance to eliminate him in the semi-finals of the Australian Open.

Djokovic remains the favorite to deny Sinner the title, despite struggling with his level and physical readiness since losing to Alcaraz in the Melbourne final.

The Serbian is 39 years old before the tournament begins, and has won against Sinner 5 times in 11 encounters.

Djokovic, who is still seeking a record 25th Grand Slam title of his career, has reached at least the semi-finals in the last five Grand Slams.

However, the world number four has not won any of the four major titles since equaling the all-time record of Australian Margaret Court at the US Open in Flushing Meadows in 2023.

Djokovic has only played two tournaments since the Australian Open, losing to Britain's Jack Draper in the round of 16 at Indian Wells, before a surprise defeat to Croatia's Dino Prizmic in his first match in Rome.

Germany's Alexander Zverev will be the second seed in the absence of Alcaraz, and will carry high hopes of ending his long wait for a first Grand Slam title.

However, the data does not indicate his ability to perform at his best in crucial moments, as the world number three has lost 3 finals and 9 semi-finals since his last title win in Munich 13 months ago.

Zverev has lost 9 consecutive matches against Sinner, 6 of them in straight sets.

French fans are looking forward to a long run from their player Arthur Fils, who has made an excellent comeback after injury this season.

No French player has reached the quarter-finals of Roland Garros since Richard Gasquet in 2016.

Teenage Spaniard Rafael Jodar will be seeded in a Grand Slam for the first time after a strong clay court campaign, while Brazilian fans will rally behind their rising star Joao Fonseca.

But all indications suggest that Sinner will lift the trophy on Philippe Chatrier court on June 7, leaving the Olympic gold medal as the only major achievement missing from his young career.

Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka seemed unrivaled at the start of the clay court season last month, but as the world number one arrives in Paris in her new attempt to win the Roland Garros title, her dominance in women's tennis has begun to show some cracks.

The four-time Grand Slam champion is still more than a thousand points ahead in the world rankings of her closest pursuer, but what concerns her in the next two weeks is improving her result in the French capital, after finishing as runner-up last year following a three-set loss to American Coco Gauff.

And if her goals before the start of the second Grand Slam tournament on Sunday resemble those of her male counterpart, Italian Jannik Sinner, who is also chasing his first clay court title in Paris, then Sabalenka's grip on her rivals has become much less tight than the Italian's dominance.

When Sabalenka swept the Indian Wells and Miami Masters 1000 double on hard courts last March, she had won three out of four tournaments played this season, with only a loss in the Australian Open final to Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina in three sets marring her record.

As she headed to Madrid to start the European clay court season with a 15-match winning streak, it seemed then that nothing would stand in her way to her fourth career title at the Caja Mágica, as part of her preparations for the French Open.

But her exit from the quarter-finals at the hands of the 30th-ranked American Hailey Baptiste ended the Belarusian player's ambitions in Spain, before she was eliminated from the Rome tournament in the third round by the returning Romanian Sorana Cirstea, saying afterwards, "I felt like my body was holding me back from performing at the highest level."

Sabalenka reflected after her exit from a Masters 1000 tournament in the round of 32 for the first time since February 2025: "I think we never lose, we just learn, so it's okay."

With growing doubts about the level of the world number one, aged 28, on clay courts, the tournament draw appears wide open once again.

Rybakina, who defeated Sabalenka in the final of last season's WTA Finals and then in Melbourne in January, when she won her second major title, will be among the top contenders, although she has never progressed beyond the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.

The world number two from Kazakhstan is arguably the player who has had the best season this year, apart from Sabalenka, and last month won the Stuttgart indoor clay court tournament, but like Sabalenka, she had disappointing results in Madrid and Rome.

As for Poland's Iga Swiatek, the former "Queen of Clay," she has recently shown glimpses of the form that led her to the world number one ranking and four Roland Garros titles in the early 2020s.

Since her last title in Paris two years ago, the 24-year-old Pole has struggled with inconsistent results, but she hopes her new collaboration with Rafael Nadal's former coach, Francisco Roig, will help her regain her best form on the surface she dominated for so long.

And Gauff, the defending champion, will not give up her title easily, as the world number four enters the competition after a strong run in Rome that ended with a loss in the final to the brilliant Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.

Svitolina (31) has won two titles this season, including her first Masters 1000 title in eight years in Rome, and will hope to go far in Paris after reaching the quarter-finals for the fifth time in her career last year.

"(Winning in Rome) gives me a lot of confidence. And it gives me a good picture for Roland Garros. But... there are very strong players. You can't underestimate (them). I have to be ready from the first round, big battles. Everyone here has one goal: to beat you," Svitolina said.

Alongside Svitolina, Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, Madrid Open champion, and rising talents Russian Mirra Andreeva, American Eva Yufech, and Canadian Victoria Mboko, as well as another American Amanda Anisimova, are among the names that could play the role of dark horses in the race for a first Grand Slam title.