The second Grand Slam of the year is on the horizon with the best players in the world heading to beautiful Paris to determine the king of clay in the French Open. Over the next 15 days we will find out who will follow Roger Federer in the list of Grand Slam champions.
Rafael Nadal returns to Roland Garros looking to defend his title and he is a warm favourite to win it once again but there are some big players lining up to oppose him and it will be interesting to see if any of them can get near him.
Recent Winners
2017 – Rafael Nadal
2016 – Novak Djokovic
2015 – Stan Wawrinka
2014 – Rafael Nadal
2013 – Rafael Nadal
2012 – Rafael Nadal
2011 – Rafael Nadal
2010 – Rafael Nadal
2009 – Roger Federer
2008 – Rafael Nadal
The Format
It is the best of five sets throughout this competition with the event a straight knockout right from the beginning. A draw has already taken place and the tournament is played out through that bracket. There is a tiebreak in the final set of these matches so no match will go beyond 7-6 in the fifth set.
Top Quarter
Defending champion and new world number one Rafael Nadal is the main seed in this quarter and he is expected to breeze though it. Richard Gasquet, Denis Shapovalov, Jack Sock, Diego Schwartzman, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Feliciano Lopez and Kevin Anderson are the unlucky seeds to have been selected in his quarter.
There are some capable unseeded players in this section too with Pablo Cuevas more than adept on clay. Borna Coric, Mischa Zverev, Ryan Harrison and Joao Sousa have all been to the latter stages of tournaments in recent times and they all line up in this part of the draw. Nadal’s opening opponent will be Simone Bolelli.
Second Quarter
Marin Cilic is the man who is given the honour of being the top seed in the second quarter of the draw. He is joined by some fellow big servers from a seeded point of view. John Isner and Juan Martin del Potro are in this quarter as are Kyle Edmund and Tomas Berdych. Adrian Mannarino, Fabio Fognini and Albert Ramos-Vinolas complete the seeds.
There is a real French feel to this quarter from an unseeded point of view with Nicolas Mahut, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Jeremy Chardy in it while Steve Johnson and Pablo Andujar have both won minor tournaments on the clay this year and could be dangerous if they are allowed to be.
Third Quarter
Grigor Dimitrov is the favourite to come through this part of the draw. He is the highest seed in it but the improving David Goffin is entitled to be a danger to the rest of them. Gael Monfils is also seeded in this quarter as are Nick Kyrgios, Pablo Carreno Busta, Roberto Bautista Agut, Novak Djokovic and Fernando Verdasco in what is a competitive section.
There are some blasts from the past in the unseeded part of the draw. David Ferrer is a former finalist here and he lines up in this section while Marcos Baghdatis and Federico Delbonis will look to be competitive. Robin Haase will look to cause upsets given the chance too in what looks like an open quarter.
Bottom Quarter
Recent Madrid Masters winner Alexander Zverev is the main seed in the bottom quarter this year. He is the second seed and is seeded to meet Dominic Thiem in the quarter final. There are plenty of players who will hope to deny them that match up though. Those who are seeded are Gilles Muller, Kei Nishikori, Sam Querrey, Lucas Pouille, Stan Wawrinka and Damir Dzumhur.
Former semi-finalist Ernests Gulbis qualified for the event again this year. He is in this quarter as a non-seeded player while Daniil Medvedev, Frances Tiafoe and Cameron Norrie from the next generation are here too. Benoit Paire and Gilles Simon are older Frenchmen who will be looking to cause upsets.
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Outright Betting
Given that Rafael Nadal is a huge favourite, and an unopposable one at that, I’m not going to have more than one bet on the outright market. It naturally comes in the other half to Nadal which is actually wide open given the awful record of Alexander Zverev in Grand Slams. David Goffin and Novak Djokovic could both go deep but I’m going to plump for the man Zverev beat in Madrid.
That is of course Dominic Thiem who comes into the tournament having won the title in Lyon on Saturday so as long as he isn’t too fatigued then I think he has every chance of a deep run. He shouldn’t be too bad because his hard court season never really got going and he lost early in Rome. The Lyon title was the second Thiem has won on clay this year having landed the goods in Argentina and he beat Nadal on his way to the Madrid final. He’s comfortable on this surface and needs a decent run. At 14/1 I think he can land us the each way money at least and if anything does happen to Nadal you’d fancy him against just about anyone else in the final.
Quarter Betting
It makes no sense to get involved in the first quarter and I’ve got an outright bet in the bottom quarter. The third quarter looks wide open so I’m going to focus on the second quarter where for the second Grand Slam in a row I can see Kyle Edmund making it to the semi-final.
Edmund broke through in a big way in Australia and since the clay court season has begun he made the final in Morocco and the quarter final in Madrid where he took care of David Goffin and Novak Djokovic along the way. Marin Cilic is the main seed in this quarter and he never truly convinces me on clay while it still isn’t certain that Juan Martin del Potro will compete. John Isner and Tomas Berdych probably aren’t at their best on this surface either so Edmund has every chance of a deep run if he can stay solid. He’s my pick in this quarter.
Tips
PLACED – Back D.Thiem to win French Open (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 15.00 with 888sport (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back K.Edmund to win 2nd Quarter for a 2/10 stake at 7.50 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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