We can say that one of the most waited tournaments of the year started without any surprises, at least for the male scheme as all the favorites and most of the seeded players go through the first round. But lots of surprises we saw from the women scheme, where the world number one – Angelique Kerber was eliminated. We must say that this was not the only surprise as in the last day we saw another strange thing happening – one of the favorites the British Johanna Konta was eliminated as well.
Now the favorite for winning the WTA French Open is Simona Halep but we all know that she is not that consistent and after the final in Rome 2 weeks ago she proved that thesis. Elina Svitolina is also a big favorite for winning the Roland Garros but the long term injured Kvitova is returning and she is going to be as much motivated as he can because she lose lots of positions due to that injury. Muguruza and Kuznetsova are playing good. The last year champion – Muguruza looked solid in her first game for the season against Francesca Schiavone but we do not believe that she will lift the title here. If we have to choose our number one for winning the title this should be Svitolina or Pliskova, depending on their next few games.
But let's go back to the male scheme where we saw already some very interesting games. All the big players are going through the next stage as the only surprise for now which we can see is the eventual elimination of Jo Wilfred Tsonga who is losing with 2-1 sets but the game was interrupted due to darkness. Murray had some troubles against Andrei Kuznetsov but he managed to win. Nadal had no problems to win against Benoit Paire, while Djokovic totally demolished Marcel Granollers Pujol. The youngest players which are coming to the tour stronger and stronger are also ahead like Dominic Thiem and Coric but Alexander Zverev and his brother were eliminated from Fernando Verdasco and Stefano Napolitano respectively.
Today, there are plenty of games to be played as well. The most interesting
games for us are between Robin Haase and Rafael Nadal, Tommy Robredo against Grigor Dimitrov and Joao Sousa against Novak Djokovic. We are not expecting surprises but looking at the odds we think that those games are not going to finish within the three sets. The odds looks good and high and we think that they can happen easily if not over 3.5 sets, at least over 30-40 games depending on the market.
For saying who is the favorite for winning the tour is still early but with this play Rafael Nadal is still on the first position. Of course, anything can happen and Murray, Djokovic and Thiem should not be underestimated. Moreover, we all know that Wawrinka is playing fantastic when it comes to Grand Slams. Nishikori is in the tour as well, despite the tough start and the next gen players like Raonic and Dimitrov are also pretenders for their first Grand Slam title.
