2019 ATP French Open Monday Betting Preview: Can Cristian Garin Continue His Hot Start to 2019?

Monday features the bulk of the first round ATP matches at the 2019 French Open, with round one concluding on Tuesday morning.

The Monday slate kicks off early once again, at 5 a.m. ET, and there are three ATP bets that I have already locked in.

Pablo Cuevas vs. Maxime Janvier

Monday, 10:00 a.m. ET

To call Pablo Cuevas a clay-court specialist would be an understatement. In tennis circles, he is often referred to as "Clayvas".

The 33-year-old Uruguayan has reached 10 tour finals (all on clay) and won six titles in his career, most recently falling to Stefanos Tsitsipas (3-6, 6-7) at the Estoril Open in Portugal in early May.

Pablo is 15-8 on clay in 2019 and ranks in the Top 20 both by the percentage of service games won (82%, 15th) and return games won (27.5%, 19th) on dirt.

He does things that most other players wouldn't dream of doing on this surface:

Cuevas has reached the second or third round at Roland-Garros for six straight years.

He generally beats the competition that he should, before losing to higher-seeded players. Since 2014, he has won his first round matches by 12, 8, 5, 9, and 9 games.

Though he will draw a 22-year-old French Qualifier in Maxime Janvier, who should have the crowd on his side, Cuevas tends to roll through lesser opponents.

If he drops the first set, he would also make for a terrific live moneyline bet.

The Pick: Pablo Cuevas, -6.5 Games (-110)

Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Denis Shapovalov

Monday, 10:00 a.m. ET

Shapovalov is not as good on clay as he is on hard courts. The young Canadian has made it to at least the second round at all four Grand Slam events, but his game is better suited for the Australian Open or US Open than Roland-Garros.

Jan-Lennard Struff is just 2-6 lifetime at the French Open, but this might be the right first round draw for him.

Over the past year, Struff ranks 31st (78.9%) in service games held, and 37th (24.6%), just ahead of Roger Federer, in his rate of return games won on clay.

Shapovalov ranks 49th (75.2%), and 63rd (17.6%) in the same categories, a far cry from his hard court stats which place him as a top 35 player.

Struff is an unseeded player in this matchup, but he is a heavy moneyline favorite (-160) and has multiple big wins in 2019, including a three-set victory over Shapovalov in Monte Carlo (5-7, 6-3, 6-1), where he would have covered this five-set spread.

He has also beaten Stefanos Tsitsipas, Milos Raonic, Alexander Zverev, David Goffin, and only lost 5-7, 5-7 to Nadal in Barcelona.

I don't anticipate that Shapovalov will be able to take more than one set off of the big German on Monday.

The Pick: Jan-Lennard Struff, -3.0 Games (-110)

Cristian Garin vs. Reilly Opelka and Jaume Munar vs. Salvatore Caruso 

Monday, 7:00 a.m. ET and 8:15 a.m. ET

This is a moneyline parlay with two of the best up-and-coming clay court players on tour.

Jaume Munar is a Rafa Nadal apprentice, training out of Nadal's academy in Mallorca. He is an adept defender, ranking 29th on tour at breaking his opponents on clay (25.8%), and has big wins in 2019 over Fabio Fognini, Marco Cecchinato, and Alexander Zverev.

Munar is a fun player to watch due to his movement and shot diversity:

The Spainaird advanced to the second round in 2018 at his first French Open as a qualifier, defeating former champion David Ferrer (2013) in five sets. I like Munar to advance without issue here, then upset Gilles Simon in the second round.

I wrote up Garin in my French Open futures piece, but it's worth noting that he currently rates as the best player under pressure on the ATP tour.

ATP ranks all players based upon a combination of their break points converted and saved, tie breaks won, and deciding sets won.

The Top five consists of Garin, Martin Klizan (a moneyline play that I made for Tuesday), Kei Nishikori, Novak Djokovic, and Rodger Federer. Tsitsipas ranks 7th, and Nadal ranks 11th. Garin is in pretty fantastic company.

As of writing, you can pair Garin and Munar together to win 1 unit at odds of -124.

The Pick: Moneyline Parlay with Cristian Garin and Jaume Munar