The unofficial start to summer this weekend kicks off an amazing 12 weeks of tennis. The French Open begins this weekend followed by Wimbledon, the Paris Olympics (to be played at Roland Garros), and the U.S. Open.
Iga Swiatek (-150) is the two-time defending champion and overwhelming favorite. The world’s top-ranked player is 38-4 this year and 14-1 on clay. That lone loss was to 4th-ranked Elena Rybakina (+1000) in Stuttgart. While clay is not her best surface (9-4 overall record at the French Open), Rybakina has fared well against Swiatek having defeated her in four of six meetings. The #2 seed at Roland Garros is Aryna Sabalenka (+550). The Belarusian has reached two finals this Spring on clay (Madrid and Rome) but lost both times to Swiatek.
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Coco Gauff (+850) has reached the semifinals or better in each of the last three French Opens but struggles against Swiatek going just 1-10 (each of the 10 losses was in straight sets). American Danielle Collins (+2000) announced earlier this year that this will be her final year playing on the circuit. Since announcing her retirement in early March, Collins has only lost to Swiatek and Sabalenka. It will be interesting to see if Collins can make a deep run as she has enjoyed limited success (8-6 lifetime) at Roland Garros.
The boys of Bet the EDGE dove into the women’s side of the 123rd French Open earlier this week. Drew Dinsick (@whale_capper) likes the defending champ who is playing her best tennis of the season if not her career heading into Paris.
“A lot of what we saw from her in the Spring was good, not great. She came into the clay cycle and lost in Stuttgart to Rybakina in that Final there and at that time I was like ‘Oh boy we might have ourselves a little bit of an opportunity to take on the queen”, but the level up that we saw from Iga in Madrid from start to finish carried directly into Rome and she was just lights out on the Rome court. I would expect that she not only wins this tournament but could realistically win without dropping a set. Her final performance against Sabalenka in Rome was just a mismatch and Sabalenka is clearly the second-best women’s player right now.”
Read More: Is this Nadal’s last French Open?
Jay Croucher (@croucherJD) believes there may be value a little further down the board in an American who is playing the best tennis of her career.
“For anyone who doesn’t really follow tennis that closely, I will say the experience of watching Daniel Collins (+2000) when she is on, there really is nothing like it. If you haven’t watched Danielle Collins play before she doesn’t indulge in rallies or strategy seemingly to me. Its just blast the ball for a winner every single opportunity you get and good luck to the person on the other side if she’s on. At the same time, sometimes the wiring can be slightly off, and it goes off the rails with her, but when she’s on and she’s been on lately then she is frightening…If you are Iga Swiatek, she might be the player you’d least like to see on the other side of the net.”
A glorious and extended stretch of high-level and high stakes tennis begins this weekend on the fabled courts of Roland Garros in Paris.