PARIS — After a tough three-set loss at the WTA tournament in Nuremberg last Thursday, Kristyna Pliskova became perplexed by the text messages she was receiving.
“I saw some messages from a couple of people saying: ‘You can win!’ ” Pliskova said in an interview on Saturday. “And I said, ‘What? They are crazy. I just lost! What are they talking about?’
And then she quickly caught on. It was Pliskova, currently ranked No. 70, who had drawn Serena Williams as a first-round opponent in the French Open, on Tuesday, in what will be Williams’s first Grand Slam match in more than a year.