Roland Garros Preview
heavy balls—quarter predictions—upsets—dark horses
The second grand slam of the year gets underway on Sunday at Roland Garros. Some highlights of the clay season:
Carlos Alcaraz went back-to-back winning Barcelona (def. Tsitsipas) and Madrid (def. Struff). The silver lining of his shock loss to Marozsan early in Rome means he comes in very fresh as the top seed after a few days back home in training.
Danill Medvedev won his first clay Masters 1000 in Rome (def. Rune) to snatch the second seeding ahead of Roland Garros. His improved forehand RPM and mentality has seen him become a clay court threat.
Andrey Rublev won his maiden Masters 1000 at Monte Carlo (def. Rune). Still, the Russian is without a semi-final appearance in a slam.
Holger Rune made the final in Monte Carlo, won the Bavarian 250, and the final in Rome. He’s got the game and confidence, but there are still question marks over his fitness at this stage of his career.
With Nadal out and Djokovic not quite in top form or fitness, the draw is a little more open than previous years, especially the bottom half.
After 112 men's qualifying matches at Roland Garros 20231:
Service hold: 71%
First Serve Points Won: 66%
Aces/Game: 0.239
Double Faults/Game: 0.230
Daniil Medvedev: “I cannot say 100% if it's the balls, the surface (...) but from what I heard from all the players, everybody agrees that it's, let's call it slower this year, and the balls get big. The balls are much heavier, so I'm sure it's going to be much more rallies than previous years. They felt really heavy for whatever reason.” (tennisform.com extract).
It will be interesting to get more data points on this from other players over the coming days.
First Quarter
Top Seeds. Carlos Alcaraz opens his campaign against Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli. While Shapovalov, Musetti, and Norrie are all dangerous names, I don’t think any of them has the form right now to beat the young Spaniard. Sebastian Korda has a tricky test against McDonald in first-round and comes in with zero wins on clay this year following wrist troubles after a brilliant start to the year in Australia. Tsitsipas should navigate his opening rounds and is still playing pretty well despite a poorer run of form since Australia.
Upsets. The obvious choice here is Fognini taking on FAA in round 1. While Fognini has struggled since the pandemic, he’s a talented ball striker and will be aided by the fact that the Canadian has been sidelined with knee and shoulder injuries in recent weeks on top of a slow start to the year. I also think Benoit Paire—aided by a boisterous crowd and a struggling Norrie—may pull off the upset here. The mercurial Frenchman made the final of a challenger in mid-May and won a challenger in March as he tries to get his career back on track.
Dark Horses. It’s hard to pick someone other than Alcaraz coming through the top half here, but keep an eye on Alexander Shevchenko. The young Russian has won a challenger and pushed Medvedev and Sinner into third sets on clay this season. From the bottom half, I like Sebastian Ofner as a really wild pick. Not only has he racked up a ton of wins lately on the challenger circuit, but he came through qualifying and has the benefit of a relatively winnable first-round against Cressy, as well as a soft section of the draw due to FAA and Korda lacking match fitness.
Quarterfinal Prediction: Alcaraz def. Tsitsipas.
Second Quarter
Top Seeds. Djokovic comes into this year’s French Open with limited clay form (by his standards) and a troublesome elbow. Still, you’d have to back him to navigate his early rounds until a possible third-round clash with Cecchinato, Fils, Van Assche, or Davidovich Fokina, who are all capable of pushing the Serb. Karen Khachanov is having a strong start to the year and has made the fourth-round or better in five of his seven starts at RG. Andrey Rublev captured his maiden Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo in May and comes into this year’s event with an 11-4 record throughout the clay season. Still, he faces a very stern test in round 1 against Djere, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this match go the distance.
Upsets. Young French gun Arthur Fils won Lyon on Saturday (def. F. Cerundolo) and had a very light draw with some defaults and withdrawals along the way. He takes on Fokina in the first-round and with the home crowd I think he is a great chance. Less surprising would be David Goffin taking down Hubert Hurkacz in the opening round. If conditions are a lot slower Goffin should get more looks on Hurkacz’s serve and is the superior baseline player on clay.
Dark Horses. I feel Fils has the best chance here in the top half. A tough first couple of rounds, but he has a few things going for him: (a) a fearless cocktail of youth and match wins under the belt to give him huge confidence; (b) home crowd support; (c) if he were to play Djokovic, it’s clearly not the best version of the Serb right now. It’s still an unlikely result in any case. From the bottom half I like Wawrinka’s draw and I think these conditions suit his game, but I’m not sure he has the form or fitness anymore to take advantage of that, so I’ll pick Djere. Djere is match tough, and I think facing Rublev in the first-round favours him as the Russian has a lot of pressure to deliver a big result in a slam.
Quarterfinal Prediction: Djokovic def. Khachanov
Third Quarter
Top Seeds. Holger Rune and Casper Ruud lead the Scandi charge in Q3. Rune has had the most impressive clay swing of anyone besides Alcaraz, but Ruud has struggled to replicate his 2022 results or form—although he did win the Estoril 250 and reach the semi-finals in Rome, where his lack of match wins probably hurt his ability to close out Rune in that match. While I think Ruud will win his opening round, I’m picking the big lefty game of Zeppieri to bully his backhand and take him out in the second-round.
Upsets. While Monfils is a shadow of his physical self and lacks matches, the home crowd and sheer talent of the Frenchman gives him a good chance against Baez, who has also struggled to replicate his 2022 form. The lack of serving power means Monfils will have plenty of chances to break if the body is willing.
Dark Horses. Francisco Cerundolo’s scalps this clay season include Norrie (x2), Ruud, Sinner, and Jack Draper. The young Argentine has an absolute hammer of a forehand—especially when given the time that clay affords—and at his best he is as good as anyone from the back of the court. He has the game to win this quarter if he stays strong mentally and keeps the serve tidy. From the bottom half I like Struff—he’s in great form and does well at RG—but he is in a tricky little quarter with Lehecka, Medjedovic, and Jarry all tough matches in the opening rounds. So I’m going with Dusan Lajovic as a possible contender. He got stopped by Alcaraz twice on the South American clay swing, won the Serbian Open (defeating Djokovic and Rublev along the way) and has generally been tough to beat/players who beat him went on to go deep in the tournament. His best result was a fourth-round loss to Nadal way back on his first attempt in 2014, and I think a wiser and more experienced Dus can seize his chance here.
Quarterfinal Prediction: Rune def. Lajovic
Fourth Quarter
Top Seeds. Daniil Medvedev comes into the French Open in his best clay form yet, however, a tough first round looms against Seyboth Wild. But should he navigate that I think Medvedev should reach the quarterfinal match. Jannik Sinner has also been a consistent performer over the first five months of the season, and has a very nice draw with Zverev still not back to top form, and Tiafoe and Dimitrov as the other seeds not exactly on my radar. Former RG finalist Dominic Thiem got into the main draw with Nadal’s withdrawal and finds himself wedged in between Coric and De Minaur. Thiem opens his campaign against Cachin, and despite a nice draw the forehand is still nowhere near what it was.
Upsets. Thiago Seyboth Wild has been in the tour backwaters for a few years after winning Santiago in 2020. However, he’s quietly racked up a lot of wins at the challenger level in 2023 and qualified with a 6/1 6/1 smackdown against Koepfer. He has a huge game off the ground; he will have no trouble hitting through Medvedev if he gets hot. Five sets might be too much for him, but I’m definitely interested in watching that one. The slow balls will probably help Medvedev in the rally, but might kill his serve effectiveness.
Dark Horses. It’s a tough quarter to pick a real dark horse here. From the top half Karatsev deserves attention purely because he’s a big ball striker who can play on his terms and crush the ball. And from the bottom it seems kind of wild to say Seyboth Wild (no pun intended), but I think his game is huge and he’s racked up a lot of wins on the Challenger circuit this year. If he gets hot there’s no reason he can’t take out the bottom section here.
Quarterfinal Prediction: Sinner def. Medvedev
And that is it! I’ll be back during the business end of the tournament with some match reports.
For reference, Indian Wells was up around 76% service holds after most of the first round, First Serve Pts Won: 70% - Aces/Game: 0.419 - DF/Game: 0.261. Miami after most of the first round was up around 84% of service games held - First Serve Pts Won: 73% - Aces/Game: 0.555 - DF/Game: 0.195. From tennisform.com
ADF v. Fils is kind of a waste in the first round. I'm a big Foki fan, so I'm hoping he can come through to the later rounds, but Fils is another fun player to watch.
Hugh, OMG !! your Dark Horses pick came out to be so much true :) specially seyboth wild & Ofnar had a huge win. kudos to you. unfortunately, Dusan Lajovic ( one of my fav) dint go past the 1st round.
Kudos to you for keeping such close eyes on these guys on the block. Cheers