The second tennis major of 2019 is just around the corner with the French Open kicking off on Sunday night (AEST)! All the best men’s and women’s tennis players in the world are flocking to Paris in hope of being crowned champion! As always, we preview the tournament and provide our best bet. Good luck to everyone following!
Below is our preview and betting tips for the women’s draw at the French Open, but we’ve also provided our Men’s Preview and Betting tips here.
Women’s French Open Betting Tips
History/Background
The French Open, also known as Roland-Garros, is an annual tennis tournament that was first held in 1891. It was initially held on a sand surface up until 1908, when it changed to the red clay that we see today. It is the second of four Grand Slam events held each year and the only one played on clay. As it is with all Grand Slam events, there are 32 seeded women at this year’s event. These 32 women have accumulated the most ranking points over the past 12 months and get the benefit of not coming up against a fellow seed until at least the third round. The most French Open titles by a woman in the Open Era is Chris Evert with seven. The defending champion is Romania’s Simona Halep.
Contenders
As it always is in women’s tennis, there’s more than a couple of players that have the ability to go on an unexpected run and take out the whole tournament. However, we’ve picked out a couple that we believe are the main contenders based on form and consistency at the top level.
Simona Halep – Last year’s champion. She’s currently ranked number three in the world and has made it to the final of the French Open three times. She comes into this week in a bit of inconsistent form but has the ability to turn it on when it matters most.
Kiki Bertens – Arguably the form player on the women’s tour. Bertens has made it to the semi-final in each of the last three tournaments leading up to this event. She made it to the semi-final at the French Open last year and has the form to at least replicate that feat again this year.
Karolina Pliskova – One of the biggest hitters on the women’s tour. Pliskova comes into this with a big title at the Italian Open last week under her belt. Not traditionally known as a clay-courter, but her recent form on the dirt has been very promising.
Serena Williams – Well it wouldn’t be a list of contenders without Serena’s name on the list, would it? She comes into this year’s French Open with a lot of questions marks surrounding her form and most importantly her fitness, which leaves us thinking it may be a rare early exit for the champ.
Title Prediction
As mentioned above, it’s always a difficult task picking which of the women’s star players will show up and dominate for the full two weeks. However, we’re loving the way Kiki Bertens is playing this season, particularly on clay, which makes her our best pick to take out the title. You can get her at $9 at BetEasy, which seems well over the odds.
Double Chance Market
There was another market that really caught our eye when checking out the major betting agencies – Sportsbet’s Double Chance Market, where you can pick a combination of two of the big guns in women’s tennis to take out the title. Effectively, this means you have two chances of winning. The two players who we really like are Simona Halep and obviously Kiki Bertens. We mentioned above that Halep is the defending champion of the French Open and has been runner up a further two times, while Kiki Bertens is very much the form player on tour and was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros last year. This leads us to believe these two players will each make deep runs with a good chance that one of them is crowned champion.
Simona Halep or Kiki Bertens
$3
