Tennis: Men’s 2020 French Open Betting Guide & Picks
The 2020 men’s French Open is almost here. While the backdrop to this tournament is unusual because of the half-year break for the tour caused by the pandemic, the favorites remain very familiar. We could see a very weird tournament since this Roland Garros event comes just two weeks after the U.S. Open. Players who had been playing on hardcourts have not had very much time to transition to clay. That could throw a lot of tennis players off balance. They might not have clay rhythm in Paris. One should expect some odd and bizarre matches in France. The main question: Will it affect the two best players in the world, or will they march to the final and create an amazing clash loaded with tennis significance?
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Tournament Overview
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are clearly the two best tennis players in the world. Nadal did not join Djokovic in New York for the U.S. Open partly due to worries about the coronavirus, but also because he wanted to stay in Europe and train on clay for the French Open, which he has won a record 12 times. Nadal is easily the greatest clay-court player who has ever lived, men or women. He makes one of the toughest tasks in tennis – winning the one clay major on the calendar – look amazingly easy. He is the man to beat, and Djokovic has never beaten him in a French Open final. He has beaten him in a quarterfinal, but not a final. Will Dominic Thiem, a French Open runner-up to Nadal in 2018 and 2019, be able to spoil a Nadal-Djokovic rematch? It’s possible, but Thiem is likely exhausted after winning the U.S. Open. If he plays Djokovic or Nadal in a possible semifinal, it’s hard to think Thiem will have the extra energy needed to win. Daniil Medvedev, a U.S. Open semifinalist, is not a leading contender here because his clay game is vastly inferior to his hardcourt game. If there is a player outside the top three who could make noise, it’s Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, who is very comfortable on clay and is waiting for a breakthrough.
Favorite Pick: Rafael Nadal
Odds: -125 at FanDuel Sportsbook
Djokovic is likely to make the final and put up a great fight, but this is Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros we are talking about. When a guy dominates one tournament and one surface the way Nadal has in his career, it is very hard to pick against him. Djokovic, being the great player that he is, could very realistically defeat Nadal, but if you had to choose one of the two on clay, right now, it’s Nadal, in part because he has had a lot of time off and will be physically fresh. Nadal’s knees have troubled him in his career, but Nadal has not played on hardcourts in several months, which helps his knees to be resilient. Nadal might be rusty in the early stages of the tournament, but if he has to play a four-set match here or there, it might actually be good for him, because it will play him into form and give him more fluidity heading into the latter stages of the tournament. Djokovic is a good pick to win this title, but Nadal is the better one.
Longshot Pick: Stan Wawrinka
Odds: -125 at FanDuel Sportsbook
The longshots in men’s tennis have a much lower chance of doing something special than the women, just because the top players in men’s tennis have far fewer weaknesses and are very consistent in winning huge tournaments. The same isn’t true for the women. If you had to identify a longshot in the men’s French Open, though, Stan Wawrinka is the pick. He hasn’t done much on the court since the tennis tour resumed a month ago, but this is a guy who will enter a major tournament off the radar and not playing well, and then burst into action and ambush opponents left and right. This isn’t a percentage pick, but the odds of Wawrinka winning are very low. Why not see what he can do?
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Dave Golokhov is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Dave, check out his archive and follow him @davegolokhov.