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The round of 16 at the French Open begins on Sunday with four marquee men's matches.
For the sake of this piece, I'm targeting two particular matchups — Karen Khachanov vs Lorenzo Sonego and Novak Djokovic vs Juan Pablo Varillas.
Dive in below for 2023 French Open picks, including my best bets for Sunday.
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2023 French Open Picks
Karen Khachanov (-205) vs Lorenzo Sonego (+165)
5 a.m. ET
Karen Khachanov is ranked 11th in the world, but it almost feels like he’s underrated based on his results in Grand Slams.
The Russian has reached back-to-back semifinals in Australia and New York, made an appearance in the round of 16 last year at Roland Garros and is 53-24 in his career in majors.
Add on an Elo ranking of 14 on clay, and Khachanov losing in this spot would be surprising to me.
Khachanov’s moneyline is too high for my liking, though. And the spread of 3.5 games is risky, as well.
Instead, I’m going to target Khachanov over 20.5 games (-120) or the over on the total for the match, 38.5 (-120).
Sonego and Khachanov have split the two matchups they’ve played on clay (back in 2019), and the Italian’s serve on the surface is good enough (32nd in Serve Rating over the last 52 weeks) to keep up with the Russian's.
I worry about how Sonego will rebound emotionally and fitness-wise after coming back to beat Andrey Rublev in five sets. However, this is a chance to make his first quarterfinal of a Grand Slam, so he'll be geared up to play regardless.
I expect Sonego to get a set, and I also expect there to be at least one tiebreaker in the match — Khachanov has played at least one breaker in eight of his last 11 Grand Slam duels.
Picks: Karen Khachanov Over 20.5 games (-120 via DraftKings) | Over 38.5 (-120)
Novak Djokovic (-2500) vs Juan Pablo Varillas (+1000)
6:30 a.m. ET
Listen, Juan Pablo Varillas has played incredible tennis during this French Open, topping Roberto Bautista Agut and Hubert Hurkacz in back-to-back matches.
I spoke in depth about Varillas in my preview before his third-round match, but the gist is that his best surface is clay and he’s in peak form. He reached the semifinals at Buenos Aires earlier this year — beating Lorenzo Musetti and Dominic Thiem in the process — and he’s a quality returner on the surface.
But the run for Varillas ends here.
Novak Djokovic is multiple steps up from RBA and Hurkacz, and even though Varillas seems incredibly comfortable on the Roland Garros courts, I’m expecting the veteran to cruise.
There were actually concerns for Djokovic entering this tournament. He dealt with an elbow issue — which forced him to pull out of Madrid — and suffered a questionable loss to Dusan Lajovic in Banja Luka.
However, the Serbian has squashed all doubts by rolling through his first three opponents, failing to drop a single set.
I like Djokovic to cover the 9.5-game spread here, as his mental toughness and experience should be too much for Varillas. The Peruvian has also played three five-set matches in a row, so at some point his legs are going to be heavy. I’m predicting that comes in this match.
There is some concern about how long it will take Djokovic to feel out his opponent — the two have never played and that was an issue for Novak against Marton Fucsovics and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina — but I just can’t see myself betting against the veteran in this spot.
