French Open Betting Tips & Analysis

Roland Garros | Introduction

Roland Garros starts this Sunday, May 26. The mixed doubles final will take place on Thursday, June 6, followed by the doubles final on Sunday, June 8.
The singles final will be played on Sunday, June 9 at 2 PM BST.
This is the 123rd edition of the French Open and the second Grand Slam event of 2019. The main singles draw will still include 16 qualifiers for men and 12 for women out of 128 players in each draw. This is in contrast to two other Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open and Wimbledon, which from 2019 have increased the number of women qualifiers to 16, to match with the US Open. It will be also the only Grand Slam to retain the advantage set in the final sets, whereas Australian Open and Wimbledon have now switched into tie-breaks.
Rafael Nadal and Simona Halep are the defending champions in men's and women's singles.

ATP French Open 2019 Favorites

Bookies are favouring Nadal (2.00) to win the Roland Garros, and that is no surprise since he lifted the trophy eleven times in the past fourteen years. Djoković is the second favourite at 3.30, while Thiem at 6.5 is the third favourite. Nadal was not playing his best tennis at the start of the clay season, but recently he has significantly improved his game.
Last week Nadal won his ninth Rome title. He was playing really well, and in two opening rounds, he has dropped only two games. Rafael made a clear statement on Sunday in his final match against Djoković - he is back, and he is very close to his top form. Not just that he beat Novak, but also has regained some confidence as this was his first title of the season. Confidence is usually the key when you’re going for a big title like this one in the Roland Garros.

Djoković is considered as the second favourite. We can agree with bookies on this, but we think that the difference between him and Thiem should not be so big. Nole is definitely playing very good tennis at the moment, but he is still far away from his top form. If he wants to seriously challenge Rafa, then he’ll need his top play! Still, Novak’s huge advantage is his mentality – mentality of a winner. Since his win at the Australian Open, he is full of confidence and believes he can go all the way to the end in Paris. In order to win a Grand Slam title, the player needs to be really strong, both physically and mentally, and Novak definitely possesses those characteristics.

As we already mentioned, Thiem is considered as the third favourite. Thiem lacks experience of the top favourites, but he is capable of beating them. This season he already showed us how good he can be when he easily beat Nadal. The Austrian was playing a lot during this season, but he doesn’t show any signs of lack of strength. He is well prepared and ready to make some serious upset in France.

Bet on Thiem to win Roland Garros @7,50

Dark horse

In our opinion, only Tsitsipas could upset the top three favourites. Odds against his win at the Roland Garros are around 20, as odds-makers don’t really believe he can go all the way. He is the player with the most versatile game, and you need such a game in order to beat the best. Stefanos has already beaten Nadal on clay this season.

We also considered Cecchinato as a potential dark horse, but he has been inconsistent so far and we don’t believe he can play on a high level for two straight weeks.

All said we consider Stefanos Tsitsipas as a value bet. Maybe he won’t take the title, but odds against his win will definitely drop after round or two!

Betting on French Open 2019

We think there is no point in betting on Nadal. Usually, odds on him are low, and even against Thiem, Tsitsipas or Đjoković, he will be considered as a huge favourite by the public and by the bookies. In our opinion, against any of those three players, his chances will be around 50 percent.
Thiem is definitely a good option because the odds are too high on him and as we already said if he plays at his top level, his chances are really big.
The surface in Paris is really slow, so when the big servers like Karlović, Isner or Opelka are playing you can definitely try betting on total games under. Usually when we have this type of players on the court bookies set high total lines, as the public does not expect many breaks to happen. Still, this is a very slow surface, so we’ll probably see more breaks than expected.
Typically, when two solid clay players meet each other they play lot of long rallies, so in such cases, it is fair to expect a lot of points. This year some bookies (eg. Unibet) offer bets on over/under hours which could be interesting, especially if you have Ćorić or some of the Spaniards on the court. On the other hand, Federer or the big servers won’t be spending so much time on the court.
Bettors should be careful in first rounds, as some of the top favourites will be still looking for their best game. At the beginning they usually play against players from the qualifications, so handicaps on underdogs can have value.
Federer has not played in Roland Garros since 2015, so he will try to keep strength for the later rounds. Usually, when he gets a break, he is fully focused only on his service games, while he doesn’t try to take another break.
In the end, we can also mention that Gael Monfils is not fully fit for the Roland Garros.