2025 Roland Garros best bets for Saturday, May 31st
The second major of the 2025 tennis season is here. The top players in the world are in Paris, France for the 2025 French Open over the next two weeks, and the action in Roland Garros should be awesome to monitor. I’ll be posting daily best bets throughout the tournament, so VSiN is the place to be if you like betting on tennis. If you aren’t already a subscriber, I’d suggest looking into becoming a VSiN Pro soon. I constantly provide analysis on all of the biggest events, and this is the best time of the year for this sport.
I’d also strongly suggest checking the Pro Picks page throughout the day. That’s where Gill Alexander will be posting his French Open best bets. Gill does a tremendous job handicapping tennis on A Numbers Game, which is a staple of our live VSiN programming. Also, while I try to write up as many of my plays as possible, I do occasionally add things to that page throughout the day. That’s also where I post plays for smaller ATP and WTA events, and my Challenger-level plays live exclusively on that page.
With all of that out of the way, let’s get into some French Open picks for Day 7 on Saturday, May 31st.
2025 Record: 717-697-1 (+21.83 units)
Joao Fonseca vs. Jack Draper
Fonseca has generated some serious buzz since arriving in Paris. The 18-year-old earned a dominant 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 win over Hubert Hurkacz in the first round, and he followed it up with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-4 win over Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the second round. Fonseca now enters the third round without having dropped a set, but his game definitely tailed off a bit from his first match to his second.
Herbert is a tricky veteran that does damage as a serve-and-volley player, but he shouldn’t have been able to keep things that tight against Fonseca. I know I sprinkled a little something on the Frenchman to win a set, but I didn’t expect him to go three sets without being blown away in at least one of them. I also didn’t expect him to have as much success as he did as a returner.
Between an up-and-down performance against Herbert and the three-match losing streak Fonseca was on heading into Roland Garros, it’s just hard to put too much stock in what he did against Hurkacz. I know Fonseca has the potential to be awesome on clay, but he has turned in some duds on this surface. And for the first time all year, the Brazilian is going to be facing a top-five player on the dirt.
Draper might not be known as a clay-court player, but he did reach the finals in Madrid and the semifinals in Rome. He’s now 11-5 on the dirt over the last 52 weeks, and he also happened to win a title at Indian Wells. That’s a hard-court event that plays like a clay-court event. Draper also happened to face Fonseca at that tournament, beating the teenager 6-4, 6-0 in the desert.
There are reasons to believe that Fonseca will be a tougher match for Draper on clay, as this is the Brazilian’s best surface. He moves better here, he returns better here and his heavy groundstrokes are more effective here. But Draper is the better returner between these two, and that was a huge difference maker at the BNP Paribas Open. And I think that Draper’s big, heavy forehand is going to allow him to push Fonseca around and control rallies.
The only real concern here is that Draper played a physical four-set match against Gael Monfils last round, and that one went well into the evening. So, this will be a quick turnaround for the Brit. But Draper has done a ton of work on his fitness and conditioning, and it’s not like Fonseca is a proven best-of-five athlete.
Bet: Draper -1.5 Sets (+102)
Cameron Norrie vs. Jacob Fearnley
I ended up hitting Fearnley to beat Ugo Humbert, as the Frenchman had to retire in the second set. However, that’s not the way you want to win, and I was also nervous about the way that match was heading before Humbert got injured. It really looked like the Frenchman was starting to gain some traction in the second set, and Fearnley also started to look fatigued. That was concerning considering how early it was in the match, and it definitely factors into my thinking in this battle of the Brits.
If Fearnley’s legs are a question mark, Norrie is going to exploit that. The southpaw is one of the best grinders there is in this sport, and his five-set win over Daniil Medvedev was a good reminder of that. Norrie was once the eighth-ranked player in the world, and he has accomplished a lot in this sport. The 29-year-old has just had a couple of down years, but he has found something lately. Norrie is 13-6 since the start of clay-court season, and he has wins over Jiri Lehecka and Tomas Machac since then. Norrie has also won more than 60% of his matches on clay in his career, and he has always been productive on the dirt.
Norrie is just incredibly dangerous as a clay-court returner, and I think he’s going to have a ton of success getting the Fearnley serve back in play. Norrie’s big lefty forehand should also be a real weapon in this match, as he has great command of that shot and his topspin makes it jump off the court.
I also like that there’s a bit of a big brother versus little brother feel here. Norrie, like Fearnley, is a British player that played college tennis at TCU. He’s going to want to go out there and punk him.
Bet: Norrie ML (-123 – 1.5 units)
Sofia Kenin vs. Madison Keys
Kenin has put together a nice clay-court season, as she’s 9-4 on the surface and she won a set in three of the four losses. When she’s playing well, she’s an absolute nightmare of an opponent. Kenin can occasionally gift her opponents free points with poor serving and sloppy footwork, but she can also overwhelm opponents with her outrageous ball striking. Well, at Roland Garros, it’s a little easier for her to set her feet and rip her groundstrokes. And while her serve becomes a little easier to return, the clay also makes her a more dangerous returner. And overall, I just like her chances of making Keys work for this win — if this year’s Australian Open champion wins at all.
If Kenin is on point with her shot placement, Keys just doesn’t have the wheels to consistently track shots down. Also, while Keys did win in Melbourne, she hasn’t looked as dominant since. She suffered a disappointing straight-set loss against Alexandra Eala in Miami and another uncompetitive loss to Anna Kalinskaya in Charleston. There are obviously going to be very good days from the 30-year-old, but there are also some bad ones.
Kenin is also just much better than her ranking suggests. She’s a former world No. 4 that won the Australian Open in 2020 and made the French Open final later that year. Nobody wants to see her in a draw, and she’s no worse than Keys when it comes to ability.
Bet: Kenin +1.5 Sets (-125 – 1.5 units) & Kenin ML (+220 – 0.5 units)
