Adrian Humphries is anticipating an upset in the French Open women’s final between top two seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff.
The oddsmakers have nailed their colours firmly to Aryna Sabalenka’s mast in the wake of the French Open top seed’s semi-final victory over four-time champion Iga Swiatek in Paris, but while the favourite should take a lot of stopping, she looks plenty short enough at the prices available.
All three of Sabalenka’s previous Grand Slam singles crowns have come on hard courts, and while her immense power is likely to make her hard to hush in this year’s Roland Garros title match, there’s definitely a case for sensing an upset when she takes on Coco Gauff, one of the finest talents the sport has ever seen.
French Open women’s final best bets
Top seed looks too short considering it’s her maiden Roland Garros final
The Roland Garros crowd should be treated to a thrilling spectacle when the top-two seeds clash in the women’s singles final, but top-ranked performer Sabalenka may not have things entirely her own way against Gauff.
Sabalenka is a 9/20 chance to lift the trophy with a victory in her first French Open final, but those odds look particularly cramped taking into account that this will be her first clay major final and that’s before considering the immense potential of her opponent.
Gauff is 3/5 to win at least a set in the final and that looks well worth taking, even allowing for the fact that Sabalenka has won the first set in all six of her singles outings in the past fortnight.
But while Amanda Anisimova, Qinwen Zheng and Swiatek, Sabalenka’s victims in her last three matches, are all high-class adversaries, none have been playing as well as Gauff in recent months and it’s just possible that the favourite may come under pressure from the outset.
Gauff has two chances to win a set and given that Sabalenka will do seriously well to silence the American in two sets, that price is difficult to quibble with.
Coco Gauff to win a set against Aryna Sabalenka @ 3/5
Talented American value to land her second Grand Slam singles trophy
And while Gauff could put up stiff resistance against the favourite in any set, whether it be the first, second or third should it go to a decider, Sabalenka could find it hard to dominate her opponent in two of the possible three sets that will be contested.
Securing the opening set is likely to prove a tougher task in Saturday’s final than in any match Sabalenka has played in the past fortnight, and even if the Madrid Open heroine manages that, she may well have to toil hard to repeat the feat in sets two or three.
Swiatek, Roland Garros champion in four of the previous five years, had been struggling to find peak form and the Pole was clearly a spent force in the third set of her 7-6 4-6 6-0 loss to Sabalenka.
But Gauff should be fit as a fiddle after reaching the finals of the three big clay events this season – Madrid, Rome and now Paris – and after making such a positive impression in victories over Ekaterina Alexandrova, Australian Open champion Madison Keys and French wildcard Lois Boisson in her last three singles matches, the Atlanta native should have every reason to feel confident about her game.
It’s also a huge boost for Gauff that she has already contested a French Open final – she lost to Swiatek in 2022 when aged 18 – and Sabalenka may need to dig deeper than ever before to thwart her blissfully talented opponent, who allowed Boisson only three games in their semi-final.
Coco Gauff to beat Aryna Sabalenka @ 7/4
