French Open Men's Day Four Tips

French Open Men's Day Four Tips: Zverev to be tested again by Baez

It's top half of the draw action ahead of us on day four in the men's singles of the French Open, and with Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal both on court, Dan Weston gives his thoughts...

Yesterday's action - Tsitsipas needing five sets

From a big name perspective, we almost saw a big upset last night with Stefanos Tsitsipas needing to fight back from two sets down to beat the talented Italian, Lorenzo Musetti, in the process landing Sean Calvert's Tuesday Double. I mentioned on numerous occasions that avoiding playing long sets and matches early on in the tournament is key for major contenders, with fatigue an issue, and a match lasting in excess of three-and-a-half hours for Tsitsipas is far from ideal ahead of a long and arduous week.

However, from a pre-match pricing perspective, we did see a major upset with Pablo Carreno-Busta ousted by veteran Gilles Simon in a four-hour epic. After fighting back from two sets down, it seemed like a Carreno-Busta win would be a foregone conclusion, but Simon rolled back the years to earn a round two clash with Steve Johnson.

Heavy favourites - big three should ease to wins

Moving on to today's schedule, there's an abundance of heavy pre-match favourites priced around 1.10 or below. These include Felix Auger-Aliassime, Alexander Zverev and Cameron Norrie, while Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Rafa Nadal are all priced at around or below the 1.05 mark.

Vulnerable favourite - Zverev looking short

It would be a major shock if any of these three outright market leaders lost today, but I wouldn't be surprised if Zverev was tested by the rapidly improving Argentine, Sebastian Baez.

Across the last 12 months on clay, Baez's numbers show he's clearly far above average on the surface, and he's already won 16 main tour matches on the surface this season.

In fact, if you look at the season data on clay so far, there's not much between the duo. Zverev has slightly better serve numbers while Baez has the edge on return, but of course, Zverev does face opposition who are of a slightly better calibre.

The duo met in Rome earlier this month and Zverev won 7-6 6-3 in a competitive match (Baez actually won one more point in the match), and the German was priced up pre-match at around the 1.30 mark. He's shorter today at 1.20, and I think the match should be pretty tight. There was just one break point in the entire match in Rome and that gives scope to looking at Baez from a game handicap point of view. Baez with a 7.5 game head start should start at around 1.80 on the Exchange, and that looks a good line to me.

Rare anticipated close match - Van de Zandschulp favourite over Fognini

There aren't many close matches on the schedule today, but one that the market expected to be tight was Botic van de Zandschulp versus Fabio Fognini. The Dutchman, van de Zandschulp, has picked up some market support against the enigmatic Fognini and is now 1.66, and that looks fair enough to me - he does have better clay data over the last year and comes into the event in reasonable form after reaching the final of Munich recently.