Ricky Dimon
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The French Open comes to an end on Sunday with the men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev. Alcaraz is looking to win his third major title at a third different location, while Zverev gets a second shot at finally achieving glory on this kind of stage.
Here are the best bets to me made on Day 15 at Roland Garros. I’m 10-3 over the last 5 days following a 3-0 sweep of the women’s final, so let’s keep the momentum going!
Alexander Zverev +5.5 games over Carlos Alcaraz (-126)
You have to like Zverev’s chances of being competitive on Sunday, if not even winning outright. First, this is actually a very good matchup for the German. He leads the head-to-head series 5-4, including 2-1 at majors and 1-0 at the French Open (a 4-set victory over Alcaraz in the quarterfinals 2 years ago). Second, Zverev has been outstanding basically this entire spring on clay — including a title at the Masters 1000 event in Rome a few weeks ago. Lastly, the world No 4 beat Casper Ruud in 4 relatively routine sets in the semifinals on Friday while Alcaraz needed 5 very tense and physically taxing sets to get past Jannik Sinner. This sets up great for the underdog.
Over 37.5 games (-110)
Along the lines of the first pick, Zverev should be competitive and that would lead to a long match with a lot of games. At the same time, it’s also not as if anyone can expect Zverev to completely crush Alcaraz. After all, the Spaniard has arguably been the second best player in the world (behind Sinner) dating back to Wimbledon last summer and just beat the best player (Sinner, who will become #1 in the world on Monday). It’s also worth noting that 2 of Zverev’s matches at this event have gone 5 sets. More importantly, the Australian Open showdown between Zverev and Alcaraz earlier this season resulted in 39 games played (a 4-set win for Zverev) and their 2022 Roland Garros matchup lasted 43 games (also won by Zverev in 4).
Alexander Zverev to hit more double-faults (-110)
I nailed Jasmine Paolini to hit more double-faults than Iga Swiatek (-125) in the women’s final and we are going right back to the well. It’s hard to believe how good of a price we are getting on Zverev. So far at this tournament the 27-year-old has committed 23 double-faults; Alcaraz comes in with a modest 16. In 9 head-to-head meetings Zverev has DFed 28 times and Alcaraz has gaffed only 13 times. Finally, the pressure of a major final also cannot be discounted. In Zverev’s lone previous effort he double-faulted a laughable 15 times in the 2020 US Open final against Dominic Thiem. Alcaraz double-faulted a mere 10 times in 10 total sets across his first 2 slam finals.
