French Open best bets for Tuesday, May 28th
It’s time for the second major of this exciting 2024 tennis season, as the top ATP and WTA players in the world will be in Paris for the 2024 French Open. The action at Roland Garros should be stellar over the course of this fantastic tournament. I already went ahead and previewed some of the action in my French Open tournament preview, where I broke down the draws and gave out some of my favorite futures. But I’ll be doing my daily tennis best bets here. So, keep reading for some of my favorite plays for Day 3 of the French Open, which will be played on Tuesday, May 28th.
I’d also strongly suggest coming back to this story throughout the day. I try to write up as many matches as I can in advance, but it’s hard to do that in an international sport. I also like to throw in some Challenger-level bets. That said, I’ll probably be adding picks to the bottom of the story. I’ll also throw them on the Pro Picks page.
MORE: Check out our Pro Picks page for everything our experts are betting!
2024 Record: 323-333 (+34.46 units)
Giulio Zeppieri vs Adrian Mannarino
Hamad Medjedovic vs. Flavio Cobolli
There isn’t a top-25 player that is playing worse tennis than Mannarino right now. The Frenchman comes into this one after having lost six matches in a row, and he has also lost nine of his last 10. And Mannarino hasn’t won a single match since clay-court tennis moved over to Europe. On top of that, Mannarino hasn’t won a single set on the dirt since April. And the sad part about that is that he even went down and played a Challenger-level event, but Richard Gasquet gave him the business in a 6-2, 6-2 beatdown. With that in mind, Zeppieri has a golden opportunity to advance to the next round, even though Mannarino will have home-court advantage here.
Zeppieri hasn’t had much success on clay at the ATP level himself, but he has at least played a lot of matches on the surface. So, he should be in better form than Mannarino, and he just generally has a better feel for winning matches on clay. Zeppieri also happened to play really well in getting through qualifiers here, beating Stefano Travaglia, Adrian Andreev and Otto Virtanen. Overall, those three wins in a row should give him the confidence he needs to get by a guy that can’t possibly feel good about winning. That’s why Zeppieri is the first leg of a big two-match parlay for me.
The second leg of this parlay has me looking to Medjedovic to beat Cobolli. This is a meeting between two young players with a lot of positive momentum. But I ultimately think Medjedovic has the ability to hit Cobolli off the court. The Serbian, who is Novak Djokovic’s protege, has a booming first serve and a great forehand. And he plays an aggressive brand of tennis. Medjedovic, last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals winner, also made a nice run in Rome two weeks ago, showing that he can be a problem in slower conditions. And ultimately, it just feels like Medjedovic is due for a breakout on the big stage. Don’t be surprised if it comes here. He has some winnable matches in his portion of the draw.
PARLAY: Zeppieri ML + Medjedovic ML (-107 – 2 units)
Dan Evans vs. Holger Rune
Rune should really be able to find a way to get by Evans, especially in a clay-court match. After all, Rune is 42-26 on clay at the ATP level, and he has been to the finals of two 1000-level events on the dirt. Rune has also won twice in Munich, which is played on clay. Meanwhile, Evans is just 19-37 on clay. The Brit is a lot more comfortable on hard courts and grass courts. So, this isn’t the worst matchup in the world for Rune. However, I do think Evans is going to win at least one set in this match. The reason for that is that Evans is one of the feistiest competitors in tennis, and he has the ability to be laser-focused throughout the entirety of a match. The same can’t be said for Rune.
Rune still has a lot of ups and downs throughout his battles, and he also happens to be coming into this match in poor form. So, even though the Danish prodigy has the potential to snap out of it at any moment, I can’t quite see him blasting Evans off the court. I also like that Evans has the ability to utilize spin in a bunch of different ways, and he also has a pretty good serve-and-volley game. If he’s able to have some no-nonsense service games, he should find a way to get himself on the scoreboard.
Bet: Evans +2.5 Sets (+106)
Alize Cornet vs. Qinwen Zheng
Cornet already announced that the 2024 French Open would be her final tournament. With that in mind, she’s going to throw absolutely everything into this match. Cornet will also have the crowd firmly in her corner, which could get to Zheng. Cornet has also had a lot of success on clay in her career, while Zheng is relatively unproven on this surface. Zheng has played only 33 WTA-level matches on the dirt in her career, but Cornet is 121-109 on clay in her career. The Frenchwoman just has a good understanding of what it takes to win on this surface, so I expect her to stay competitive by playing with shape and variety. Zheng should eventually figure out a way to overcome that, and her power should win out in the end. But I think Cornet has the ability to cover this massive game spread. I also think it’s worth sprinkling the 34-year-old to win a set.
Bet: Cornet +6.5 Games (-110) & Cornet +1.5 Sets (+300 – 0.5 units)
NOTE: I gave this Cornet spread out at -110 a few days ago, but it’s at -125 now. I’d still play it at that number. I just wouldn’t want to go down to +5.5 games. I’d sooner use an alternate spread of +7.5 and use it as a parlay anchor.
Added Plays
Thai-Son Kwiatkowski ML (-112 – 1.5 units) vs. Bernard Tomic [Little Rock Challenger]
Gregoire Barrere ML (-109 – 2 units) vs. Alexander Bublik [French Open]
