The third and final Grand Slam tournament of 2020 begins on Sunday when the great and the good of the tennis world set foot onto the clay courts of Roland Garros for the French Open, usually the second major of the year but nothing is normal about these times.
Rafael Nadal won this tournament last year and he is back to defend his title after missing the US Open. With no clay court season to speak of it will be interesting to see if his usual dominance comes out or whether we’ll see a surprise or two.
Recent Winners
2019 – Rafael Nadal
2018 – Rafael Nadal
2017 – Rafael Nadal
2016 – Novak Djokovic
2015 – Stan Wawrinka
2014 – Rafael Nadal
2013 – Rafael Nadal
2012 – Rafael Nadal
2011 – Rafael Nadal
2010 – Rafael Nadal
The Format
There are 128 players in the draw which has been determined prior to the event beginning and the competition is a straight knockout over the best of five sets like the other Grand Slams. Where there is a difference in this one is that there is no tiebreak in the final set of matches. They have to be won by two clear games when the score reaches 6-6. The champion will be crowned on the third Sunday of the tournament.
Top Quarter
Novak Djokovic is the number one player in the world and he is the number one seed as a result here. He won in Australia at the start of the season but controversially missed out in New York earlier in the month. He looks pretty solid especially as he won the Rome Masters but there are seven other seeds looking to find a chink in his armour. They are Hubert Hurkacz, Christian Garin, Karen Khachanov, Roberto Bautista Agut, US Open semi-finalist Pablo Carreno Busta, Jan-Lennard Struff and Matteo Berrettini.
There aren’t too many unseeded players in this quarter that are household names but one who is would be Feliciano Lopez. Frances Tiafoe is a player who has been spoken about for a while but hasn’t ever really delivered the goods. John Millman, Guido Pella, Richard Gasquet and Ugo Humbert. There is also a bit of British interest in this part of the draw as Cameron Norrie and the qualifier Liam Broady are also in this section.
Second Quarter
The former US Open finalist Daniil Medvedev is the highest seed in the second quarter of the draw. He is the fourth seed here but will need to prove that clay courts serve him as well as hard courts do. While he is doing that there are another bunch of seeds who will be out to take advantage. They are Nikolai Basilashvili, Dusan Lajovic, Andrey Rublev, Denis Shapovalov, Grigor Dimitrov, Filip Krajinovic and the bigger danger to Medvedev in the form of Stefanos Tsitsipas, the man who make the Hamburg final in the lead up to this tournament.
Once again there isn’t a huge depth of household names among the unseeded players in this part of the draw. Pablo Cuevas will be looking forward to the fortnight now he is away from the hard courts while home player Gilles Simon is another who will look to showcase their talents. There is a bit of an American theme to this section with Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson both here as well. Kevin Anderson and Alberto Ramos-Vinolas are a couple of other players who have tasted the higher levels of the game.
Third Quarter
The US Open champion and beaten finalist here last year Dominic Thiem will go in search of successive Grand Slam titles from the third quarter. The Austrian was also a finalist in Australia at the beginning of the year so he has now been to three of the last four Slam finals. If he is to get to this one he will need to come out of a quarter that has Gael Monfils as the next highest ranked seed. The other seeded players in this quarter are Taylor Fritz, Borna Coric, Diego Schwartzman, Stan Wawrinka, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Casper Ruud.
This is one of those quarters where the unseeded players are well known to tennis fans. Former US Open champion Marin Cilic is one of the bigger names in this quarter. He has a titanic tussle with Dominic Thiem in the first round. Multi-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray is in this quarter as well while Jack Sock is a former top 10 player in the section. Reilly Opelka is one of the rising stars of the game while Miomir Kecmanovic, Jeremy Chardy, Jordan Thompson and the enigmatic Alexander Bublik are all in this quarter too.
Bottom Quarter
This is the part of the draw where the defending champion Rafael Nadal will look to make a successful defence of his title from. If he is going to make it out of this quarter he might need to beat Alexander Zverev in the quarter final as that will be the last eight clash in this section if it all goes with the seedings. Six other seeds will be looking to stop that match from happening. They are Alex de Minaur, Benoit Paire, if he is allowed to play in the tournament, David Goffin, the entertaining Fabio Fognini, John Isner and Dan Evans.
There are a few players in this quarter of the draw who are pretty well known as well. The main one of those is Kei Nishikori while Andreas Seppi is a veteran of the ATP Tour. Jannik Sinner is a very highly rated youngster who will be looking to overcome Goffin in the first round and push on from there. Marco Cecchinato is a former semi-finalist in this tournament while Juan Ignacio Londero and Pierre-Hugues Herbert will be looking for a lengthy stay on the dirt.
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Outright Betting
With Dominic Thiem and Rafael Nadal, the two men who have competed in the last two finals of this tournament, both in the bottom half you’ve got to think it makes sense for us to take someone in the top half. In truth Novak Djokovic looks like a major runner in there so I’m not going to go bonkers in the outright market. I do think Stefanos Tsitsipas is ready to step up and follow in the footsteps of Thiem though and go deep in a Slam.
Usually it would be a negative that Tsitsipas has made the final of a tournament which will actually be played on the opening day of this one but everyone has played such little tennis in the last six months that I actually think the confidence that will come from his run from Hamburg is much bigger than any tiredness issue. I don’t really see an immediate danger for Tsitsipas in his draw so he should get into the second week and from there this will be anyone’s. 35/1 offers enough of a price to take on Djokovic in a potential semi-final and seeing where the Greek goes from there.
Quarter Betting
I’m not going too mad with the quarter betting either but Dominic Thiem hasn’t played on the clay since the US Open and that feels like a negative, while Rafael Nadal has only played one tournament since Covid struck so he might be worth taking on for once too. I’m not going too big with bets but there are a couple of players who could offer value for their quarters against that pair and are worth a small investment.
In the third quarter I’ll take Dominic Thiem on with Casper Ruud, the Norwegian player who has been in great form on the clay this season. He won the 250 event Buenos Aires and lost in the final in Santiago while since then he has been to the semi-final of the Rome Masters two weeks ago and Hamburg last week. He had a decent enough US Open so he is a man in good form and if there is any rust in Thiem that maybe Marin Cilic can exploit in the first round, Ruud might be the man to take advantage. In the bottom quarter I’ll take Nadal on with Fabio Fognini, a player who is either brilliant or terrible but he tends to be better than usual on the clay and especially when he’s up against top players. It is hard to see Nadal not winning this quarter but he has only played one event in six months so it isn’t impossible. 33/1 on the Italian is too big for this quarter.
Tips
Back S.Tsitsipas to win French Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 36.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back C.Ruud to win 3rd Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 19.00 with Bet365
Back F.Fognini to win 4th Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Sky Bet
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