French Open - Mens Outright

An intriguing French Open draw was completed on Friday morning, pitching arguably the three best clay courters on current form into the same side of the draw. World Number 2 - Novak Djokovic, King of Clay - Rafael Nadal and the up and coming Dominic Thiem - semi-finalist in Rome, have all been drawn into the bottom half. That’s great news for the likes of Andy Murray, Alexander Zverev and Stanislav Wawrinka of course, who will all be pleased to have missed the impressive Nadal in particular.

Let’s start in the stronger bottom half then, where the case for Nadal adding a 10th career title could barely be stronger. Already this season he has won the Madrid Open, the Barcelona Open and the Monte Carlo Masters during the clay season, and he’s also reached the finals of the Australian Open (losing in five to Federer), Acapulco and Miami. In fact, only Federer, Querrey and Thiem have beaten him this campaign on any surface. That defeat to Thiem in Rome could actually have helped his cause as he’ll have banked a few extra days rest. Most impressive of all has been Nadal’s statistics over his clay season. In 18 matches he has held service in 86.3% of service games (only Raonic is higher) and broken in 39.9% of return games - that’s almost a full 10% better than his nearest challenge. Combined, those stats give a 126.2% total, and his nearest challenger on that metric is Thiem on 112.2! In a quarter with Raonic and Dimitrov who have won 16% and 18.4% of return games on clay over the past 12 months, Nadal is as good as a certainty for the Semi-Finals. He’ll likely meet Djokovic in the semis, who returned to form in Rome just in time. While Dominic Thiem has been outstanding recently, Djokovic demolished him 6-1 6-0 in Italy, which brings him back into favour, but at 4/1 he’s overlooked given he will face a tough test against Thiem, before facing Nadal ahead of a potential final. That’s a lot to do at the odds. Similarly Thiem would face a similar path, albeit reversed in the quarter finals, but despite appearances in two major clay court finals, I’m not quite ready to back him at 12/1 when he’ll need to win a minimum of three huge matches including against Nadal. He’s been unlucky with the draw, and next year could be more his time. So if Thiem was unlucky with the draw, who has profited? Well the simple answer is probably Andy Murray or Alexander Zverev. Murray is still ranked number 1 in the world, but his form since March has been sketchy to say the least. He was put out in the second round of Indian Wells to Vasek Pospisil, and reached just the 3rd round in Monte Carlo, losing to Albert Ramos-Vinales. Barcelona was better, as he reached the semi-final before losing to Dominic Thiem, but he then lost in the 3rd round of Madrid to Borna Coric and the 2nd round of Rome to Fabio Fognini. His clay season numbers have seen him win just 69.9% on service games and 26.4% of return games - seriously low by his high standards and last season’s finalist has a combined figure of just 96.3% - not nearly enough to be a real challenger this year unless he sees a significant upturn. Instead, I’d rather side with Alexander Zverev at 18/1. The German has long been talked about as the next big thing on the tour, and he’s begun to show flashes of what he is capable of. With an 82.7% clay season service game record, and 27.3% breaking percentage, he looks capable of mounting a big challenge given his easier side of the draw. It won’t be plain sialing, with Nishikori and Murray in his quarter, but if he gets through to the semi-finals, I’d favour him to beat Wawrinka or any other potential opponent for that matter, and he looks value at 18/1.

4pts Nadal to win Outright at evens

1pt ew Zverev to win at 18/1 (1/2, 1,2)

#Tennis