The weekend is here, and the tennis at Roland Garros is heating up! These matches are on the earlier side of things, but I can't think of anything better than waking up, making some coffee and watching some Grand Slam tennis. Let's take a look at some bets to have with that tennis and coffee!
Here are my picks for Mirra Andreeva vs Peyton Stearns and Qinwen Zheng vs Elina Avanesyan in my Saturday French Open predictions for June 1.
Match times are subject to change. Read here for advice on viewing French Open matches.
2024 French Open Betting Picks
Mirra Andreeva (-300) vs Peyton Stearns (+240)
5 a.m. ET
I haven't dabbled much in the derivative markets yet this week, but there's one I do like on Saturday in one of the first matches on court.
Stearns to hit the over on her break prop against the Russian phenom looks like a nice price to me. Let me delve a bit into why.
First, I do see some value on the Stearns moneyline. Expected to win under 30% of the time, I think we're seeing a bit of an overvaluation on one of the game's bright young stars that has still had a bit of trouble when it comes to dealing with powerful players from the baseline. Why? Primarily because her serve can be vulnerable at times. On clay, she ranks in the bottom half of the top 50 women in hold rate. The same goes for her first serve win percentage. She's still lacking pace, and that makes perfect sense for someone her age, especially on a slower court.
Stearns is also an aggressive returner with power in her groundstrokes. That has given Andreeva trouble in the past, as players seize control of points against her rather quickly.
The next point is that in order to realize any equity on a Stearns ticket, it's almost certain she'd need to break 4+ times in order to get the kind of lead you'd want to trade out on or for her just to get the win. With Andreeva being a competent returner herself, the path to victory for Stearns is to apply pressure early and often. If this prop weren't to hit, the chances any moneyline wager comes through are pretty close to zero.
With the Andreeva serve being vulnerable and Stearns being well suited with her power and mindset to exploit it, four breaks of serve over two sets doesn't seem like that tall of a task. If we get a third set, I'd be floored to see this go under.
Pick: Stearns o3.5 breaks (+100 via bet365)
Qinwen Zheng (-700) vs Elina Avanesyan (+500)
5 a.m. ET
From one angle on how to back an underdog who is more live than I believe the odds suggest to a more straightforward handicap on a favorite that should cruise to victory.
Zheng is one of the few players who plays a big, powerful game and is probably best suited to hard courts, but she who has that kind of raw power on serve and from the baseline that can cut through clay courts and makes her effective on the dirt as well.
She's had some early losses on the surface (she doesn't control that power nearly as well as players like Elena Rybakina or Aryna Sabalenka, but that's one of the few things she doesn't have in her toolbox), but we've also seen plenty of success on the red clay.
Since the 2022 clay campaign, Zheng has won a 125k title and a 250 title, reached the second week of Roland Garros and made a pair of quarterfinals in Rome. The competence is there.
She also eviscerates underpowered opposition. She did so in the first two rounds her, and while Avanesyan is much better than either of those opponents, both her first and second serves are underpowered and vulnerable. She did play well last round, running down some big Anna Blinkova groundstrokes, but this is another level of power. She's likely to be chasing this match from the start, and barring a deluge of unforced errors we should see a pair of lopsided sets in the world No. 8's favor.
Picks: Zheng -5.5 games (-115 via DraftKings) | Zheng u19.5 games (-110 via DraftKings)
