All eyes will be on the Stade Roland Garros this year for the postponed French Open. Particular attention will be focused on the men’s singles title after the very surprising result in the US Open, when Dominic Thiem prevailed in a scrappy match against Alexander Zverev.
In winning the match in the fifth set tiebreak, he became the first new winner of the men’s Grand Slam final since 2014, a sign of the stranglehold that Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal have had on the game for the last six years.
Looking at the French Open odds in the middle of September, it seems that Nadal is very much the favourite at 5/6, with Thiem next in line at 11/4. At 3/1, it must be hoped that Djokovic will have lived down his humiliating exit from the US Open to come back with a realistic chance of victory. After these three, the odds get distinctly longer with Zverev at 20/1 and Stan Wawrinka at 33/1.
So maybe this would be a good time for a bet on an outsider who could create an upset in the style of one of the following, successful underdogs.
Gustavo Kuerten 1997
In the 1996 tournament, Gustavo Kuerten lost in the first round and was ranked a very lowly 66th in the world going into the 1997 event. But his remarkable run of success that eventually saw him being crowned champion included victories over Thomas Muster and Yevgeny Kafelnikov along the way. In his straight-sets victory over the Spaniard Sergi Bruguera in the final, Kuerten became the third-lowest-seeded Grand Slam champion ever.
Rafael Nadal 2009
Before playing in the 2009 French Open, four-time champion Rafael Nadal already had three clay-court titles under his belt that year, and he is regarded by some as being the greatest player on the surface of all time. But, despite having a record of 31 undefeated appearances at Roland Garros, he was shocked to receive a 6-2, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 defeat in the fourth round by the 23rd seed, Roger Söderling. The latter’s victory was made all the more surprising by the fact that, when the pair met previously on clay, he had only managed to take a single game off the Spaniard in the three-set match.
Roger Söderling 2010
A year later, Söderling was showing that he really was cut out for the clay at Roland Garros by taking on and defeating Roger Federer in the quarter-finals. This was the first time in 23 Grand Slam tournaments that Federer had been denied a place in the semis. This seemed only fitting as it was the Swiss player who had knocked Söderling out the previous year after beating Nadal – and was the first time he’d managed to beat Federer in 12 meetings.
So, all in all, it promises to be a fascinating tournament in 2020, full of intrigue and interest. Whether it also includes an upset like these, we’ll just have to wait and see.
