The French Open

A sports bettors worst nightmare; a highly publicized, all encompassing, two week event… with no value. The French Open has largely been the domain of one man, basically for the last two decades. There are only three active players who have won a Roland Garros title (surprise, the Big Threee) and only one other who can even say they have been to the final (Thiem is the only active player to make the final and not win). It’s a crazy small, elite class. And it’s basically all Rafa’s fault (Murray and Wawrinka have also been to the final and Stan won it in 2015 but it is hard to say either of them are ‘active’ tennis players).

There is a sharp divide, obviously, between the four active past finalists too. Federer and Djokovic have similar histories here albeit a decade apart. Federer made five finals between 2006 and 2011, losing to Rafa four times and winning his title by avoiding Rafa and beating Robin Soderling. Djokovic has also made five finals, between 2008 and 2012, losing to Rafa three times (and Stan once) and winning his title by avoiding Rafa and beating Andy Murray. Thiem is a slightly different case, having made the finals twice and the semis twice, losing to Rafa or Djokovic each time. The unifying theme for each player is Rafa. Thirteen titles in sixteen years. He only has two loses at Roland Garros and neither were in the finals. His two loses were to Soderling in ‘09 and Djokovic in ‘15 and neither guy won the event after defeating Rafa, so must be the stress and pressure having come from vanquishing the Spanaird.

Last year there was great consternation that Rafa’s reign might come to an end. The venue was changing suppliers, using a different, larger, heavier kind of tennis ball. The event had been moved from May to October, where the weather would be colder and drearier and more damp. Rafa had not enjoyed his usual run up events, with Barcalona, Madrid and Monte Carlo being cancelled and him losing in Rome at the quarter-final stage. And what happened? Rafa proceeded to win the French in 2020 without dropping a set and dismantling Djokovic in the final.

So, is there value to be had? Or is everyone continuing to fool themselves? Let’s dig in and see what’s out there.

Quarter One

Novak Djokovic still headlines the event as the #1 seed and best player in tennis. But, last years final must loom large. As must his struggles to dominate non-Rafa opponents on clay in the lead up this year - he lost to Dan Evans in Monte Carlo, he lost to Aslan Karatsev in Belgrade, he was broken four times in ten games against #225 player in the world on Saturday in the second Belgrade final. The only bright spot would be his performance in Rome. He was able to dispatch Tsitsipas in three tough sets and he was able to put up a breadstick on Rafa in the final before losing a competitive three set match. The one thing in Djokovic’s favour this year at the French is the draw. He has finally been granted a relatively easy quarter. Last year he had to run through Khachanov and Carreno Busta, the year before that he had Zverev in the quarter-finals, and in 2017 he had Thiem. This year he is granted a winless Sandgren in round one, two out of form players in round two (Cuevas and Pouille) and the other seed in his eighth is Ugo Humbert, who has a career clay winning percentage of 33%. His sixteenth isn’t much harder given that the two seeds are DeMinaur and Goffin. ADM, like Ugo, has a poor clay record and Goffin is 1-7 lifetime versus Djokovic. Berrettini and Federer headline the bottom half of the quarter and they could both be troublesome but, he only has to face one of them. Federer has proven to come up short against Djokovic on all surfaces, lately. For any success he has had recently Berrettini has still struggled against the big guys on tour - he has seven wins against top ten talent and all of them have been against Thiem or Khachanov or Zverev. Berrettini has been beaten pretty badly whenever he has faced the Big Three. It is pretty hard to see Djokovic not winning the quarter. The lines for his five toughest matches look to be about -10,000 vs Sandgren, -9,000 vs Cuevas, -5,000 vs Humbert, -500 vs Goffin, -1,000 vs Berrettini (or -500 vs Federer). With Berrettini that parlay gets to -270. With Federer it gets to -200. If Goffin loses to Musetti in round one (totally possible) then really the moneyline rollover might struggle to get below -300. Djokovic -188 to win the quarter looks tempting.
Another interesting angle in the first quarter, given Auger-Aliassim’s struggles on clay this year and Berrettini’s troubles against top talent is Federer to make a run. Fed could certainly be laughed off the table given his loss in Geneva to Pablo Andujar. But, that was his first match on clay in two years and his third match on any surface since January of 2020. We’ll have to assume he has put in some work since and he is still Fed and his much maligned history on clay isn’t all that bad given he made five finals in six years at Roland Garros and made the semis here in 2019 the last time he played here. He should have two nice warm up matche against Istomin and Cilic and he has to only really beat one of Berrettini or FAA to make the quarter-finals (Fritz put up a good fight against Djokovic in Rome but lost to Ramos Vinolas and Bautista Agut in the lead up). Federer is -800 to Istomin and the lines for him against Cilic and Fritz should be about -600 and -400. Now, given FAA’s poor record this spring (he hasn’t more than two matches in a row since the Aussie) we’d have to suspect Fed-Berrettini in the fourth round. A pick’em vs Fed? Given the four prices above for Djoker to just reach the quarter-final (-10,000, -9,000, -5,000, -500) and four lines for Fed at -800, -600, -400 and -110, you have an eight-way rollover that reaches somewhere around +290. Those are rough numbers and are totally susceptible to upsets along the way. Fed and Djoker are +240 to meet in the quarter-finals and Berrettini is +300 to lose in the fourth round. Both, very viable bets.
There isn’t much in the way of long-shots in this quarter, given Djokovic’s prescence. If Djokovic is going down, it’s probably early, so someone like Cecchinato (+2000) or Musetti (+5000) to come out of the top half might be value.

Quarter Two

Rafa is not a top two seed… and journalists’ minds everywhere melt. If there is one thing that doesn’t matter, it is probably Rafa’s seeding. As described above, he didn’t drop a set last year in the worst conditions he has faced yet. He seemed to struggle at the outset of the clay season, barely winning in Barcelona while losing in Monte Carlo and Madrid. But, they were ‘good’ losses (Rublev and Zverev) and there is no blame in struggling through three sets with a hot Tsitsipas. The ship was righted in Rome though where he bet a who’s-who of the current tennis elite - Sinner, Shapo, Zverev, Opelka and Djokovic. That’s an impressive run. The top half of the bracket should be a cakewalk for the defending champ if it turns into Popyrin, Gasquet, Norrie, and Sinner. Norrie might be a hot hand on clay but he shouldn’t be a match for Nadal on clay. Surprisingly, Norrie’s only two career top ten wins were on clay (Thiem and Isner) but neither opponent was in tip top shape as, funnily enough both wins were in Lyon with Roland Garros looming. Sinner has played Rafa on clay twice in the last seven months and hasn’t won a set yet. Rafa’s quarter-final match might be a treat as it could be Karatsev or Rublev and both have proven dangerous lately. The question is, can they do damage to Rafa at Roland Garros? Given the way Rafa was able to turn it up against Djokovic last year and the strain he will be under to add to his Slam title count (could this be his last chance?) it is hard to see him stumbling againt anyone short of the final. There isn’t much value on him to win outright (you have to pay juice at this point) but an interesting prop is Nadal to win the title without dropping a set. It pay 18/1 and he shouldn’t really be threatened until he faces Sinner in the fourth round.
This is easily the worst quarter to write about but there is potentially one other angle to explore - fading Schwartzman. He has drawn into the same section as Karatsev who has put him to shame twice already this year. At the same time, DSS has two very easy looking beginning matches. A third round meeting looks inevitable and Karatsev should be favoured, so DSS to lose in the third round at +125 looks tasty.

Quarter Three

Now we get to the fun part - with the Big Three all in the top half the bottom is wide open. Even Cilic landed in the top half, which means Thiem is the only Slam winner in the bottom of the draw. And Thiem headlines this third quarter. As outlined above, no one has beaten Nadal and gone on to win the title so, Djokovic is probably out as an option. Does that mean this is Thiem’s year to finally win the French? Djokovic takes down Nadal? or Djokovic tires Nadal out and then Thiem takes the title? Well, that would be a great theoretically if Thiem wasn’t playing the worst tennis of his recent career. Thiem didn’t get the greatest draw either - he gets nothing but clay centric guys all the way through - Andujar, Delbonis, Fognini, Ruud, and Zverev is his potential path out of the quarter. Every single one of those guys would consider clay their best surface and by quite a margin. In fact, the draw is so rough, Zverev is actually the favorite to win the quarter. Maybe Thiem can ‘turn it’ on but this may be a case of incremental damage that eventually takes him down before he even gets to a marquee match-up. The wonderful @whale_capper had this theory last year about Thiem’s draw and it proved true as he was pushed to a tiebreak by Jack Sock, pushed to five sets by Hugo Gaston and ultimately wore out by DSS in five sets. That could conceivably happen again. He has only made one semi-final in 2020 and he was dismantled by Zverev in Madrid.
So, can Zverev capitalize? It’s hard to know what Zverev is going to show up these days. He seems to one week have gotten over the majority of his mental issues and the next week be the 2019-2020 Zverev; almost without warning. He went about winning Acapulco and Madrid this year losing a combined one set in twelve matches and collecting scalps from five top ten playes including Nadal, Tsitsipas and Thiem. But, then he loses in the first round to guys like Emil Ruusuvuori and Alexander Bublik and Ilya Ivashka. He’s basically turned into a suped up version of Fabio Fognini. Win the title or go out in the first round. His double count fault in 2020 was 0.4 per service game and in 2021 it’s 0.37. Almost no improvement, yet he is holding serve at his best percentage on clay in his career (83%). If can maintain a return game that has historically hovered around breaking 30% of the time, this draw is set up for him to really make a run. The concern with him winning the title is that his path could potentially end with Thiem, Tsitsipas, Nadal. His career head to head with those folks is… bad. He is 3-8 versus Thiem, 2-5 versus Tsitsipas and 3-6 versus Nadal. Hopefully, he can avoid a (potentially?) rejuvenated Thiem and at least make the semis.
The one interesting option in this quarter who has a decent price is Casper Ruud. Outside of Tsitsipas and Nadal he has probably had the best clay season. If you throw out the made up Marbella event in early April he has gone SF, SF, SF, F in Monte Carlo, Munich, Madrid and Geneva. He doesn’t match up well with big, big hitters (losses this year were to Berrettini, a peaking, ball bashing Basilashvili, and Rublev twice) and his loss to Thiem last year showcased that well. But, +550 to win the quarter if Thiem is not 100% and Zverev is in double fault mode is not a bad price. He shouldn’t have an issue getting to the fourth round but he will probably be a dog to both Thiem and Zverev. With the potential lines of -2000 vs Paire, -5000 vs Majchrzak, -500 vs ADF, +150 to Thiem and +110 to Zverev you get a moneyline rollover of +575. So, basically dead nuts to the market. There could be value there is Thiem is not onhis game.

Quarter Four

Everybody and their brother is on Tistsipas. First it was Djokovic who was going to dethrone Nadal on clay, then it was Zverev, then Thiem was the next King of Clay. Now, everyone loves Tsitsipas. His odds were 18/1 in January, 12/1 after Miami, 7/1 before the draw and they sit at 4/1 today. Jeeeezuz. This guy has six career titles; not career Slams, titles. And only one is a Masters 1000. He has losses this year to Medvedev, Rublev, Herbert, Zverev, Hurkacz, and Ruud and outside of a first set tiebreak win against Herbert, they were all in straights. He did suffer ‘good’ losses to both Nadal and Djokovic on clay this year which is promising but he is still super reliant on tiebreaks and high pressure points which leads to such small margins or paths to victory. He has actually cut down his tiebreaks played (11% of sets this year which is less than Djoker and Zverev and Thiem) but he still only breaks serve around 20% of the time (He is running at 32% on clay the past month, so he needs to maintain that to have any shot this year). It might be difficult for him to keep his head for seven straight matches over two weeks and as we’ve seen with Cilic and Thiem and Wawrinka, players under the age of 26 just don’t win Slams right now (Del Potro at 21 in 2009 and Castro Ferrero at 23 in 2003 are the last guys to win Slams at Tsitsipas’ age outside the Big Three and Hewitt and Safin are the only other two to do it since the turn of the century). The great thing for Tsitsipas (or Thiem or Zverev) is they only have to face one of Djokovic or Nadal. But, that is still a mighty wall to climb.
Given that Medvedev has shown a pretty real aversion to winning on clay the idea in the fourth quarter might be to look for some value opposite Tsitsipas in the bottom half. Cristian Garin is 10/1 to win the 4th quarter. He is a ‘cay specialist’ if there ever was one (career 66% winner on clay, 33% winner on hards), he gets three matches to warm up before potentially facing Medvedev and then he’ll get Tsitsipas. He is holding serve 80% of the time and breaking at the bare minimum for success on clay of 30%. All five of his career title are on clay, and he already beat Medvedev on clay this year, in Madrid where Medvedev should have been most comfortable. Regardless of whether he can beat Tsitsipas, if you have 10.1 in the quarter-final, you have options.

Picks:
Djokovic-Federer to meet in QF, +240, Bet365
Carreno Busta to go further than Schwartzman, +100, Bet365
Schwartzman to be eliminated Rd 3, +125, Bet365
Ruud to make the QF, +250, Bet365
Garin to win 4th Q, +1000, Bet365
Nadal-Zverev to make final, +700, Bet365
Nadal to win without dropping a set, +1800, bet365

PS - The Womens side:
Osaka +1200
Muguruza +1600
Barty +475