Andy Schooler will be previewing matches on every day of the French Open – here are his best bets for day one at Roland Garros.
Tennis betting tips: French Open matches
1.5pts Over 37.5 games in Mariano Navone v Brandon Nakashima at 4/5 (General)
1pt Quentin Halys (+5.5) to beat Tomas Machac on the game handicap at 5/6 (BoyleSports)
1.5pts Kamil Majchrzak to beat Hamad Medjedovic at 5/4 (General)
Mariano Navone v Brandon Nakashima
I think this one is going long.
I’ve written about Nakashima’s strong serve and weak return game in the past, one which leads to plenty of tie-breaks.
Navone is also decent on serve and despite the clay surface, which will numb the delivery of both men, I can see this being fairly serve dominated.
Either way, I’m not sure there’s a great deal between the players. Navone is the deserved favourite, given the surface, but he’s not been in the greatest of form since arriving in Europe, going just 4-5 on the clay.
Nakashima beat Flavio Cobolli in Madrid and last week pushed Luciano Darderi to three sets in Hamburg, a player I’d consider to be at a similar level to Navone.
The American actually won the pair’s only previous meeting, which came on clay last season at the Turin Challenger. That match went three sets and I can see both players claiming a set here.
If that occurs, I’m confident the overs will land in the total games market and that will be my approach.
Tomas Machac v Quentin Halys
Machac has not enjoyed the clay swing and looks a seed vulnerable in round one.
The young Czech has gone just 2-4 since his return to the surface and last week’s tournament in Geneva ended with him quitting his match with Cam Norrie due to a knee injury.
Critics will say Halys isn’t the best player to oppose Machac with and that’s true, but he played well in Geneva last week where he beat Jaume Munar and then tested top seed Taylor Fritz, only losing 7-6 6-4.
His serve was working well – he won 75% of points behind it against Munar and 87% of first-serve points against Fritz.
Admittedly, the Frenchman has a poor record at his home Grand Slam, winning only one of eight main-draw matches over the years.
However, look into the detail and you see he nearly always puts up a great fight with numerous tight matches on his CV.
With that in mind, I think he is more than capable of keeping this close in front of the home fans as the evening draws in – this match is last on the schedule.
The game handicap line is set at 5.5 and that’s one Halys has covered in six of his eight previous matches at Roland Garros.
The ones he didn’t both came against top-10 opponents, including Rafael Nadal on what was Halys' tournament debut.
Kamil Majchrzak v Hamad Medjedovic
I like Majchrzak as the underdog in this one.
While both men would likely prefer a faster surface to this, Majchrzak looks the man who adapts to it better.
The Pole played well in Marrakech, reaching the semi-finals, while he then went on to capture the Challenger title in Madrid.
He’s defeated some decent players in recent weeks, including Jaume Munar, Alexandre Muller, Pablo Carreno Busta and Marin Cilic.
Admittedly, his best results on clay have come at a higher altitude than this, something that helps his strong serve, but I’m still prepared to take a chance on Majchrzak.
Medjedovic has lost three of four on clay at tour level this season. It’s a surface on which he has to work a lot harder given his first serve usually wins him a lot of cheap points on the faster surfaces.
A look at the hold/break stats helps show why the Pole may be under-rated here by the layers.
Across all claycourt matches this season, Majchrzak has held in 85% of his service games and won 25% of games on return. Notably, his stats barely change when the tour-level filter is applied (85-23).
Medjedjovic is at 80-17 at all levels and just 78-12 at tour level.
Back Majchrzak at 5/4.
Posted at 1345 BST on 24/05/25
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