French Open: Men's Winner Tip

I can’t remember seeing a player dominate a sport for months on end and still find himself overlooked by the bookies in the way that Novak Djokovic has been for the French Open. Sportingbet are still offering a barely fathomable 9/5 on the Serbian winning the second Slam of the season, to follow on from his Australian Open success in January.

To mention Djokovic’s Melbourne triumph only tentatively begins to capture his true credentials for Roland Garros. He arrives in Paris with an unbeaten run of 39 matches and seven tournament wins from seven entered in 2011. People were starting to gush over the world number two’s form in early spring but there was a general presumption by many in the game that ‘normal service’ would resume when the clay court season began in earnest. Not so.

Nadal has been the undisputed king of the red surface for many a year now. With five French Open titles bagged since 2005 his evens price appears reasonable enough at first glance. But the Spaniard had the same number of Rome Masters wins under his belt from the same period, and Djokovic just beat him there in straight sets. It was the same story in Madrid where Nadal had also arrived as defending champion. All and all, Djokovic has won four out of four meetings with Nadal in 2011; the left-hander is clinging to his world number one status by a thread.

The only difference between Paris and Rome (or Madrid) is that matches over the next two weeks will be best of five. The bookies must think this favours Nadal, but the evidence for that is tenuous. Is the Spaniard really going to be confident of the prospect of taking three sets off a man who has won the last two clay court finals against him without dropping a single one?

And all this assumes that the world’s top two will both progress serenely to the final anyway. Nadal may first have to overcome Andy Murray in a semi-final; the British number one looked like a contender on clay in recent weeks.  Djokovic would certainly not fear playing the Scot whom he comprehensively dismantled in the Melbourne final, but then he has no reason to fear anybody. Federer may stand in his semi-final path but the Swiss superstar is finally looking to be past his imperious best.

With age on his side, Nadal was gradually winning his long-running duel with Federer. He had a game plan for the 16-time Grand Slam winner that was proving effective. In contrast, he is yet to find the strategy to overcome the 2011 Djokovic vintage. Until he does that, we should take all the unexpected value Sportingbet are still offering on Djokovic winning the French Open. Grab the 9/5 odds while you still can.