The top half of the French Open draw can produce a surprise finalist says Andy Schooler, who has 125/1 and 150/1 picks.
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A few lucky punters will have 7/1 on their betting slip about Rafael Nadal winning the French Open, which gets under way on Sunday.
For that was the price of the Spaniard winning a record 10th Roland Garros crown when he began his latest comeback from injury just after Christmas.
It didn’t last long. Nadal’s return may not have been quite as spectacular as his 2013 one but it isn’t far off. He’s won a lot and lost little and he arrives at his second home in Paris as an odds-on shot across the board.
Only two players have ever beaten Nadal in best-of-five-set matches on clay – Robin Soderling in 2009 and Novak Djokovic in 2015. On the first occasion Nadal was struggling with a knee problem; in 2015 his form had dipped considerably.
Therefore you can easily argue that despite the price contraction over the past five months, there’s still value to be had in quotes of 10/11.
This is, after all, the greatest claycourt player of all time and one who comes into the tournament having won titles on the red dirt in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Madrid.
Yet you can still pick holes, too.
Nadal was beaten by Dominic Thiem in his last match in Rome, thus missing out on the chance of an unprecedented clean sweep of the four major warm-up events.
Perhaps it was also a sign of the amount of tennis in Nadal’s legs, which will be 31 years old by the time the tournament ends and with two weeks of best-of-five tennis ahead of him, there’s a chance he’s played a little too much – in fact he admitted that competing in Rome may not have been the best idea.
With the draw having thrown Nadal into the same half as the second favourite, Djokovic, who gradually appears to be improving and has now brought in Andre Agassi as his new coach, I won’t be among those piling into the favourite.
Thiem – now third in the betting – is also in the bottom half of the draw (he could meet Djokovic in the last eight) which means the top half is undoubtedly the weaker of the two.
It was that way in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome too and those tournaments duly produced finalists in the shape of Albert Ramos, Thiem and Alex Zverev, not to mention semi-finalists including John Isner and Lucas Pouille.
The top two seeds in the top half, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka, are notably absent from that list with neither showing anything like their best form and both have to be opposed.
Murray arrives a shadow of the player he was 12 months ago. He’s had shingles and an elbow problem this season and heads to Paris with a virus. He may have been a finalist at Roland Garros last year but there looks to be every chance of an early exit this time around given how he’s played of late. Even his first-round match against Andrey Kuznetsov, who enjoyed a good run in Geneva this week, is no gimme.
History would suggest Wawrinka has a better chance of going deep. He’s regularly underperformed at Masters level only to turn it on when faced with the biggest stages.
He’s made at least the quarter-finals in 10 of his last 13 Slams, winning three, including here two years ago. Last season he lost in the semis to Murray.
While I wouldn’t be surprised for Wawrinka to flick the switch again, I’m not prepared to back him at 14s, especially with what looks a tricky path through the draw ahead of him.
Potential second-round opponent Carlos Berlocq knows his way around a claycourt, Fabio Fognini (last 32) can beat anyone on this surface on his day and the same can be said about Gael Monfils (last 16) who will be playing in front of his home fans.
The prices tell us Zverev and Kei Nishikori are the next most likely to reach the final from this half.
However, the value in the German’s price has now gone following his Rome success and it’s significant that he’s never been beyond round three at a Slam. Best-of-five will also be draining for a player still not physically at the same level as some of his contemporaries.
As for Nishikori, you can certainly make a case for backing him at 40/1 but you are massively relying on a body which regularly breaks down.
The Japanese has been nursing a wrist injury in recent weeks and shown little to suggest he’s ready to go deep here, where the three-sets-to-win format places plenty of strain on him.
In short, I think there’s a good chance of a surprise finalist emerging from the top half and there are a couple of players I feel are significantly overpriced. They are the ones who will earn my faith.
First up is Marin Cilic at 125/1.
Clay may not be the Croatian’s best surface but his results have been pretty decent this spring.
He made the quarter-finals in Monte Carlo before winning a lower-tier event in Istanbul.
A last-32 loss in Madrid just two days later (in a tight match against the aforementioned Zverev) can be excused, while only a couple of points were between him and Isner in their quarter-final in Rome.
Don’t get me wrong, Cilic’s form does not hold a candle to Nadal’s but that’s not relevant in this much weaker section, especially considering their respective prices.
So many of the seeds in his part of the draw look opposable for one reason or another – David Ferrer (poor form), Nick Kyrgios (mental weakness, injury), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (fitness and form), Monfils and Richard Gasquet (both just back from injury).
The numbers also back up my assessment that Cilic is playing pretty well right now.
He is in top 10 of virtually all of the major serving stats on clay this season and that delivery will stand him in good stead, especially if the temperatures hold up in the French capital as they are expected to do for the foreseeable future.
At the price, Cilic is worth a small punt.
I’m also advising a small play on a real claycourter in the shape of Pablo Cuevas.
The Uruguayan may never have been past the last 32 at Roland Garros in his previous visits but he arrives this time on the back of his best-ever European clay campaign.
He made the quarter-finals in Monte Carlo and semis in Madrid, while an early loss to Thiem in Rome was no disgrace.
Critics will point out Cuevas’ poor record against the game’s elite but I’ve already suggested that this half could easily see some of the bigger names fall by the wayside.
In any case, he’s also started to address that in recent weeks, defeating Wawrinka in Monte Carlo (where he was two points away from beating Pouille in the last eight) and man-of-the-moment Zverev in Madrid.
The pair could meet again in the last 32 here and Cuevas will take confidence into that one, if it occurs, as a result of his Spanish success which was the pair’s first meeting.
What is also encouraging is that Cuevas has shown he can play in differing conditions – slower in Monte Carlo, faster in Madrid. He was also a quarter-finalist at Indian Wells back in March where the ball bounces high and that could well be the case in Paris if the forecast is correct.
Cuevas is offered at 150/1 which again just looks too big.
Posted at 1800 BST on 26/05/17.
