Optimism laughs at the scoreboard at all levels of sport and, in different circumstances, Serena Williams and Johanna Konta took the concept to its outer edges on Monday, two weeks before the French Open.

Williams, who is 36 and has played a handful of matches since winning the 2017 Australian Open when seven weeks pregnant, is a contender at Roland Garros, according to her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.

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“Serena will play the French Open to win it,” he told the WTA’s website of her bid to lift a 24th grand slam title, despite pulling out of Madrid last week then Rome to build on her fitness at his academy in Nice. “Can she do it? Serena can achieve anything. After being her coach for six years I’m even more sure of that statement.”

Konta’s forecast may not be so grand. She has yet to win a grand slam title and has not got out of the first round in Paris in three visits, losing last year to Hsieh Su-wei, a doubles specialist ranked 109 in the world at the time. However, she said: “I still maintain I have never not liked clay and I am really enjoying playing on the surface this year.”

The evidence is not overwhelming. She lost to the world No 219 Fanny Stollar on the clay of Charleston last month, then the American qualifier Bernarda Pera (97) in Madrid. So the former top-tenner felt entitled to take heart from a tough but welcome victory over Magdalena Rybarikova at the Italian Open – her fourth on the spin in their rivalry.

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Konta also got the better of the Slovak in Madrid before losing to Pera and, despite hitting 40 unforced errors in one hour and 50 minutes to win 6-4, 6-3, she was smilingly upbeat.

Having slipped out of the top 10 to 22 in the world, Konta undergoes further examination of her cheery resolve in the second round, when she plays either lucky loser Aryna Sabalenka or Hsieh.

It is not a prospect that bothers her. “I seem to play the same people, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I play her,” she said, laughing.

As for her quick rematch with Rybarikova, she said: “I knew going into the battle that it was going to be a lot of tough games, deuce games. That’s what we had last week as well. I’m just really happy I [handled] things well. I had a lot of break chances in the first three of her service games but I stayed tough, believing I was playing the right way. I was really pleased the way I was able to compete.”

Rybarikova, a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year, was bumped up in the seedings here when Petra Kvitova, Konta’s scheduled opponent, withdrew at the last minute, exhausted, after winning the Spanish title on Sunday.

Four places ahead of Konta in the world rankings, Rybarikova stretched the first set to nearly an hour when Konta might have wrapped it up in half that time if overcooked backhands had not let her down in key moments. Nevertheless she maintained: “I felt good on both sides.”

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There could be no argument her killer forehand clicked pleasingly, however, and her first serve was on the money 66% of the time.

In the peerless setting of Court Pietrangeli, Konta had five chances to break in the first set before crunching out nine points in a row on her opponent’s serve, then slowly found more rhythm in the second set.

In all Rybarikova rescued her serve 11 of 16 times. On Konta’s second match point, a call went against her serve and, replaying the point, she looked relieved to force a closing mistake from her opponent.

In Konta’s view there are way more positives than negatives. “I am moving well on the surface, I am a little clearer on how I want to play and also on how to keep my game as it is, because it is effective on the clay as it is on the grass and the hard. I am doing a better job this season to not really change something that doesn’t need to be changed.”

She may prove to be right. There was at least evidence to suggest that, when her groundstrokes are flowing and she hits flat and hard to the corners, not many players can live with her. Her challenge this week and in Paris is to string enough of the good stuff together to go deep in the draw.

Then, as she dissected her performance, she sniffled and said: “I’ve got a bit of a cold but all good. Wecrack on.”