Bet on Jannik Sinner to win Roland Garros now

Last week, it was uncertain whether or not Jannik Sinner, the 2024 Australian Open champion, would be competing in Roland Garros. The 22-year-old has been dealing with a hip injury that forced him to withdraw from the Rome Masters—which must have been brutal for the Italian. On top of that, reports emerged that Sinner would need to rest his hip in order to prevent the issue from becoming “chronic.” But Sinner will be playing at Roland Garros this week, and he has a pretty favorable draw. The Italian also noted that his hip is no longer a concern in a press conference on Friday, May 24th. Now, I’d strongly suggest taking him to win at +500 odds. (Odds as of Friday morning on DraftKings Sportsbook.) Sinner was in the +325 range before the hip news got out, so this is a much better price than you could have gotten weeks ago, because of the uncertainty. But all of the top players in the field this week have question marks.

I honestly thought that Sinner was being a little short-changed in the market before the injury. Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic were the two favorites to win at Roland Garros, and Sinner was a distant third. But the Italian has been the best player in tennis this year, and it hasn’t been close.

This season, Sinner is a ridiculous 28-3 across all competitions. The Italian is also first in the world in hold percentage and third in break percentage this season—he’s just dynamite in two of the most important aspects of the game. On top of that, Sinner backs it up with elite baseline play. He arguably possesses more power than anybody in the world from the forehand and backhand wings. He has also added some variety in the last year, working in more drop shots and net approaches than ever before. There really aren’t any holes in his game right now, outside of some questionable physical conditioning. But Sinner kind of put those criticisms to bed in Melbourne. Now, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the player to beat at every tournament he plays—at least until we see some more consistency out of Alcaraz.

I also wouldn’t make much of Sinner’s relative lack of success on clay. The Italian beat Alcaraz in a clay-court final in Umag in 2022, and that was back when people thought Sinner’s best surface might actually be the dirt. Well, Sinner has only improved since then, and he has the all-court game required to win a tournament like this. In fact, TennisViz and Tennis Data Innovations have Sinner at No. 1 in the world when it comes to Performance Rating on clay in 2024. They also gave him a higher Shot Quality on the forehand and backhand sides than anybody else in the world.

Perhaps Sinner will look like a shell of himself and get bounced earlier than expected. But you know what? We have seen players enter tournaments with injury concerns and look completely fine. So, you never want to put too much into reporting. Instead, focus on the fact that you might not see Sinner at +500 odds again. This news could end up being a gift that gets you one last payday on a player that is rapidly improving.