The second slam of the 2024 season is finally upon us. The stretch from the Australian Open to the French Open is almost as long as that from the US Open to the Happy Slam (and that includes the offseason).
Alas, the deluge of matches that is the first round at the biggest events on the tennis calendar is once more here.
Find picks for Zhizhen Zhang vs Aleksandar Vukic and Gabriel Diallo vs Kei Nishikori in my latest French Open picks today.
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French Open Picks Today
Zhizhen Zhang (-300) vs Aleksandar Vukic (+240)
5 a.m. ET
Much like his draw in Australia when he managed to pull clay court specialist Federico Coria, Zhang gets a player that is a fish out of water on the clay in Vukic.
Now, he disappointed in the quicker conditions of Melbourne, but I don't expect another disappointing performance in a win this time around. His game translates to clay more than Vukic's with better movement and his power able to cut through the slower conditions.
Vukic's backhand is near the bottom of the barrel on the surface among ATP players, he can't really slide and his flatter hitting leads to a lot of unforced errors as the rallies get longer.
Even this season, since finding a pair of wins in the slight altitude of Marrakech, he's been beaten — and badly — in many of his matches. His lone wins have come against the underpowered and nearly retired Diego Schwartzman and the returning Mackenzie McDonald, who is far from a clay courter himself.
As for his losses? They've come against a mix of Challenger Tour players and main tour regulars and have come by an average of six games since Monte Carlo. This spread is just five and that's for a best-of-five set match, meaning Zhang would have an extra set to cover the number. It's odd to me that the market still believes in Vukic enough to make him just a five game underdog.
I prefer a five game spread which can be made by splitting one's stake between the -4.5 and -5.5 game spreads if your book doesn't offer the -5 itself.
Picks: Zhang -.4.5 games & Zhang -5.5 games (-120 via bet365 & +105 via DraftKings)
Gabriel Diallo (-227) vs Kei Nishikori (+175)
8 a.m. ET
This one is really quite simple. As much as Diallo is a serve-oriented player and one would think that he'd tend to struggle a bit more on the clay, the Canadian was impressive during his qualifying run, and he's more athletic than you'd think someone his size would be.
His return game was just fine, and he plays one of the game's greats, but Nishikori has played one match this season, isn't a clay courter by nature himself and I'm not ready to trust him to jump right back in on a protected ranking in a best-of-five set match.
If this is close early on, I wouldn't be surprised, nor would I be worried. The longer this one goes, the more I would trust the young player who has been playing consistently on the professional circuit. If anything, this is a pretty nice draw for him, considering his overall lack of experience in this longer match format. The one advantage I would think a veteran would have over him is that experience in best-of-five sets to draw on, but with the utter lack of match play this year for Nishikori, I think it's fairly easy to deduce that's he more likely to break down physically compared to his younger counterpart. I have this number closer to -5.5 or -6 than -4.5.
Pick: Diallo -4.5 games (-110 via bet365)
