French Open Round 1 Odds, Picks, Predictions: Swiatek Will Dominate Tsurenko (May 23)
Clive Brunskill/Getty. Pictured: Iga Swiatek hits a forehand at the Indian Wells tennis tournament.
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Iga Swiatek vs. Lesia Tsurenko Odds
| Swiatek Odds | -10000 |
| Tsurenko Odds | +1325 |
| Over/Under | 16.5 |
| Time | 6 a.m. ET |
| Odds via PointsBet. For tips on how to watch tennis, click here. | |
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek will take on Lesia Tsurenko in the first match of her campaign to win a second French Open title.
While this is a wildly lopsided match, that doesn't mean there's no value to be had.
Let's dive into the first round matchup for the heavy Roland Garros favorite.
Swiatek Firing on All Cylidners
Swiatek is putting together an incredible season of tennis. She has won 28 matches in a row and has only lost one set in her last 20 matches. This includes a 9-0 record for the season on clay.
The Pole has won five tournaments in row. She's taken home the title in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart and in Rome. Pressure doesn't seem to affect Swiatek much either, as shown by her recent performances in the final of these tournaments.
In the five finals, Swiatek was broken just five times combined, saving 15-of-20 break points. On return, Swiatek held every opponent to 65% or less of their first-serve points won and under 45% of their second-serve points won, breaking 25 times.
Remember, this is all against finalists of these big tournaments who were playing excellent coming into their respective showdowns with Swiatek.
In Rome, the conditions closest to Roland Garros out of all of these tournaments, and Swiatek returned incredibly well. She broke serve a combined 31 times in the five matches and generated 52 break points during the event.
Swiatek's game is all coming together. She hits her spots on serve and has the biggest weapon on the WTA Tour in her forehand.
Her backhand is solid and her movement is excellent, especially on the clay. There's no weaknesses to exploit in Swiatek's game, and opponents have to just hope she's off her game.
Tsurenko Having Strong Clay-Court Season
Tsurenko is having a strong clay-court season. This extended into Roland Garros qualifying, where Tsurenko qualified after saving a match point in the final round against Yuki Naito.
All of Tsurenko's qualifying opponents, Emiliana Arango, Sara Errani and Naito, had under 50% of their first serves won and 35% or less of their second serves won against Tsurenko's return.
She won 22-of-38 break points in qualifying, doing a great job of attacking opponents' serve.
However, Tsurenko struggled with her own second serve, failing to win more than 45% of her second-serve points during her qualifying campaign. Both Tsurenko's first and second serves were largely rolled into the box and would have been further exploited by high-level competition.
With that said, Tsurenko's groundstrokes from both wings were very solid. She was able to control the baseline well with her big backhand, and that backhand needs be on fire if she wants to compete with Swiatek.
Regardless of the result of this match, it's been a very solid clay-court season for Tsurenko.
In addition to qualifying for Roland Garros, she also qualified and made the round of 16 in Istanbul. Tsurenko has a 59% winning percentage on clay over the course of her career and has played 260 matches on the dirt, so she understands clay-court tactics.
Betting Value
Your eyes are not deceiving you, the odds really are this lopsided. Oddsmakers are well-aware that Swiatek has far surpassed the rest of the women's field at this point.
That shouldn't scare you off from betting Swiatek. She really is that good.
Having seen Tsurenko in qualifying, the speed and placement of her serve will not be acceptable against Swiatek. The Ukrainian is just rolling her serves into the box and Swiatek, should destroy them.
Swiatek's backhand is more than capable of holding up in the backhand-to-backhand exchanges and her forehand should dominate from the baseline. In addition, Tsurenko will find it very hard to hit through Swiatek.
This should be a beatdown and I have to trust the red-hot Swiatek.
Pick: Swiatek -7.5 games (-130)
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