Tennis Betting: Women’s 2021 French Open

The 2021 women’s French Open is almost here. Last year’s event was held in October, making this the second French Open played within a span of eight months. This year’s event will be held at the normal, traditional time of year for Roland Garros: early June. The weather should be warmer, the playing surface harder, the bounces of the ball higher in the late-spring conditions. Will this affect the results of the women’s tournament? It is hard to say… but the journey should definitely be interesting.

Tournament Overview

Last year, Iga Swiatek took the tournament by storm. There was an awareness that the Polish youngster had the components needed to become a great clay-court player in the course of time. She plays strong defense, she moves well, she has a heavy topspin forehand, a good drop shot, and a generally resourceful all-court game which rewards the clay surface. Clay requires good point construction and problem solving. Swiatek showed she could bring those skills to competition… but no one expected her to display total mastery of this tournament so early in her career. Swiatek stunned everyone by winning the 2020 French Open without losing a set, or even needing a tiebreaker in any set she played. She lost fewer than 30 games in the whole tournament, or under five games per match. Swiatek will turn 20 years old on the second day of this year’s French Open. The idea that a 20-year-old could defend a Roland Garros title seems improbable, but Swiatek’s dominant 2020 French Open was improbable in its own right. We will see how well Swiatek handles the pressure from various angles. The different conditions in June, compared to October, might require a significant adjustment from Poland’s most famous tennis player.

Favorite Pick

Simona Halep has won only one French Open, which is hard to believe. Halep is an elite clay-court player who has made three French Open finals, her first one being seven years ago. She made back-to-back French Open finals in 2017 and 2018. It seemed there would be many more occasions in which she would contest the Roland Garros championship. Yet, in each of the last two French Opens, she has been taken out by a hot opponent. Last year it was Swiatek, and in 2019, it was Amanda Anisimova, who nearly reached the final that year. Halep needs to be able to shut down a powerful hitter. She can clearly defend the court, but sometimes she isn’t aggressive enough as a counterpuncher, and her serve is vulnerable. In what looks like a very wide-open tournament, Halep is not a heavy favorite, but like Elina Svitolina and maybe also Garbine Muguruza, she is one of the foremost threats to win this championship.

Longshot Pick

The idea that a major champion is a longshot pick might seem weird, but Bianca Andreescu feels like a longshot pick because she is missing the Madrid Open due to illness, which leaves her with minimal clay-court preparation before Roland Garros. Andreescu loves to play on clay – she has said so – but virtually all of her career accomplishments thus far have been on hardcourts. With little prep time, it will be hard for her to make a deep run in Paris… but she is so talented that anything is possible when she takes the court.