We're into the year's second slam! With Iga Swiatek being the overwhelming favorite to claim the trophy, I think a lot of the value on the women's side will be looking through individual matches to find some misprices.
Let's go over a pair of them now as the opening day is nearly upon us.
Find picks for Clara Tauson vs Tatjana Maria and Olga Danilovic vs Martina Trevisan in my latest French Open best bets.
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French Open Best Bets
Clara Tauson (-400) vs Tatjana Maria (+300)
8:30 a.m. ET
A favorite that has been valued as clearly the better, yet still seems undervalued, is Tauson. At 21-years old she has been a top-100 mainstay when healthy in her young career and as a teenager made it as high up in the rankings as No. 33.
That's actually a better career high than her 36-year old counterpart in this contest, as Maria has yet to reach the top-40 in her career.
It's not really all that surprising either, with Maria's game far better in quick conditions. She has an awkward game that features a strong first serve and then slices on the vast majority of her groundstrokes, as she relies heavily on opposition errors and point construction to give herself a chance.
That's why nearly all of her clay success have come at altitude and in conditions that speed things up a little bit. When at sea level, the first serve becomes much more manageable to return for her opponents and her slices sit up more on the higher bouncing surface. Anyone who can dictate play and whose style has the least amount of aggression and offensive prowess tends to be able to beat her with ease.
Enter Tauson. The young Dane's game is almost entirely power based and her mindset is an aggressive one. We've seen her post lopsided sets with regularity and on the flip side, Maria's also lost plenty of sets the same way.
The offensive and surface edge here both go Tauson's way, and once she figures out the timing against the kind of junk ball coming at her, she should roll to victory.
Pick: Tauson -4.5 games (-120 via bet365)
Olga Danilovic (-233) vs Martina Trevisan (+190)
10:30 a.m. ET
Well after several favorites that I think present value on the opening day of action, I do want to outline at least one underdog that I think it a bit mispriced.
That would be Trevisan, who has had her struggles of late, but is still at her best in the slow clay conditions that the French Open offers, and we've seen her do well here in the past. I should note, however, her best run came in the fall at the tournament postponed due to COVID, when conditions are colder and even slower.
The important part of this handicap for me is that it's a match likely to feature a lot of breaks. That has me believing that it should remain fairly close and the chances of one player pulling away and dominating aren't very high.
Danilovic could once rely on her serve for a few cheap points in the days of her being one of the more promising young prospects in the game. That also helped her play a kind of all-court game that a lot of the tennis world thought would help her progress up the rankings and have staying power in that top 25 to top 40 range.
Problem is, though she's only 23, it feels like she's regressed already. Her serve is floated in far too often, the errors have been a consistent flaw in her game and though she qualified and decent in doing so, she's also lost matches to the likes of Leyre Romero Gormaz, Zhuoxuan Bai and Simona Waltert this clay season. To put it into perspective, she was a favorite in all three of those matches and didn't win a set in any of them.
She also has the talent that had Danielle Collins on the brink of defeat and beat legitimate WTA competition in Camila Osorio and Clara Burel.
Her results have been all over the place and trusting someone with inconsistent results and inconsistent play as this large of a favorite seems like a bad idea.
Trevisan may be struggling, but she's in the ideal conditions for her to pull off an upset and she's an excellent returner playing someone that has a hold rate of just 56% on clay at tour level in the last 52 weeks, winning just 56% of first serve points (that's atrocious) and 42% of second serve points.
Pick: Trevisan ML (+190 via FanDuel)
