Tennis Betting: 2020 French Open Men’s Final
The 2020 men’s French Open final is unprecedented in a lot of ways, but not one: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have been here before. This is their third meeting in a Roland Garros championship match, having previously met for the title in 2012 and 2014. They also met in multiple semifinals in the past.
They are familiar with this situation, but the tricky part of this match — and how to size it up — is that so many other details of this meeting are different from the norm. We will look at those many factors, plus the form of each player heading into this historic occasion.
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French Open Men’s Final: (1) Novak Djokovic vs. (2) Rafael Nadal
Odds (via FanDuel Sportsbook): Djokovic +120, Nadal – 144
This is the match everyone wanted to see. The top two players in the world, battling for a lot of history and glory in the last major final of 2020. If Djokovic wins, he will get his 18th major championship. He will have won all four majors at least twice, something Nadal and Roger Federer have never done. He will become the first and only man to have beaten Nadal in a Roland Garros final.
If Nadal wins, he will claim a 13th French Open title. He will move to 3-0 against Djokovic in Roland Garros finals. The 34-year-old will win his 100th match at Roland Garros, against just two losses, and tie Federer with 20 major championships. Everything is on the line in a matchup drenched in historical significance.
Nadal enters this match in slightly worse form than Djokovic. Nadal didn’t play on hard courts at the U.S. Open. He hasn’t played as many matches as Djokovic this year, and not since the restart of the tennis season in the late summer months. Djokovic is a little more battle-tested. Nadal isn’t generating the depth needed on his groundstrokes or the placement on his serves, which he will need to beat Djokovic.
However, Djokovic had some neck and shoulder discomfort in his quarterfinal win over Pablo Carreño Busta. Djokovic also needed five sets to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in a late-night semifinal, which could leave him slightly diminished for Sunday. Djokovic is the more in-form player, but he is more vulnerable to physical limitations. That makes the match hard to calibrate.
Let’s also look at the different nature of this match for reasons not related to the specific players. This is an October Roland Garros final. Usually, the tournament is played in early June. The weather in Paris in October is a lot wetter and colder than in early June. Sunday’s forecast is for sun, but also colder temperatures. The sun will be important because the October sun is lower in Paris.
When this match starts around 3:10 p.m. Paris time, there will be large shadows over the court. Nadal played at 3 p.m. in his semifinal against Diego Schwartzman, and he clearly struggled to see the ball. The first set could be a battle less between the players, and more between them and the sun-shadow dynamic on court. Djokovic hasn’t played in the sunny conditions Nadal faced on Friday. He could be caught off guard, but it’s impossible to know how he will react.
Nadal will be concerned about the cold weather. Hot conditions usually cause the clay court to harden and create higher bounces, which Nadal likes for the purposes of hitting heavy topspin shots that are harder for his opponents to control. In colder weather, Nadal might not generate the same bounce height, which could mean Djokovic will have more balls in his strike zone to hit.
Nadal is usually the clear favorite when they play on clay at the French Open, but that’s not the case here. Yet Djokovic — an easy favorite against anyone else — is not an obvious favorite in a five-set match against Nadal. This is a dead-even matchup that will turn on a few key points.
Djokovic, though, has the top reputation in tennis right now for winning the five or six most important points in the match. Nadal’s reputation is great, but Djokovic is No. 1 these days in terms of rising to the occasion. Nadal will need to turn the tables on Sunday if he is going to win. This should be fantastic and close, either way. It won’t be a straight-set match.
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Dave Golokhov is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Dave, check out his archive and follow him @davegolokhov.