Tennis Best Bets: French Open predictions and picks for Thursday, May 30th

French Open best bets for Thursday, May 30th

It’s time for the second major of this exciting 2024 tennis season, as the top ATP and WTA players in the world will be in Paris for the 2024 French Open. The action at Roland Garros should be stellar over the course of this fantastic tournament. I already went ahead and previewed some of the action in my French Open tournament preview, where I broke down the draws and gave out some of my favorite futures. But I’ll be doing my daily tennis best bets here. So, keep reading for some of my favorite plays for Day 5 of the French Open, which will be played on Thursday, May 30th.

I’d also strongly suggest coming back to this story throughout the day. I try to write up as many matches as I can in advance, but it’s hard to do that in an international sport. I also like to throw in some Challenger-level bets. That said, I’ll probably be adding picks to the bottom of the story. I’ll also throw them on the Pro Picks page.

MORE: Check out our Pro Picks page for everything our experts are betting!

2024 Record: 323-339 (+25.68 units)

Luciano Darderi vs. Tallon Griekspoor

Griekspoor is the 24th-ranked player in the world and has a tremendous combination of a booming serve and aggressive baseline game. On hard courts, he’s a guy that can beat anybody when he’s hitting his spots with the serve. However, Griekspoor is just 15-19 on clay at the ATP level. And while he has had some success on clay at the Challenger level, I just don’t think it’s fair to expect him to beat Darderi. This season, only two players in the world have more wins on clay than Darderi’s 16. Those players are Sebastian Baez and Casper Ruud, who are both known for their fantastic play on the dirt.

Darderi’s serve wouldn’t touch Griekspoor’s on any other surface, but he has an 80.0% hold percentage on clay this year. That’s right on par with Griekspoor’s 81.1% hold percentage on clay in 2024. But the difference between these two is that Darderi has a break percentage of 26.9% on clay this year. Griekspoor’s is down at 12.6%. That said, look for Darderi to do a better job of getting into Griekspoor’s serve here, and don’t be surprised if the Italian has the edge from the baseline. Darderi has the ability to go big from the forehand side, but he can also hit with a little shape. He’s also a much better mover than Griekspoor.

Darderi has also played 23 clay-court matches since April. And he played 15 on clay before an opening-round loss in Miami. He’s the definition of a specialist and he should be able to handle an all-court player that relies heavily on his serve.

Bet: Darderi ML (-130 – 1.5 units)

Bianca Andreescu vs. Anna Kalinskaya

This is a pretty straightforward match for me. While Kalinskaya is a little unproven on clay, she’s still 15-10 on the season and has turned in some great results at big tournaments. Meanwhile, Andreescu has played only one match since August. That was her first-round win over Sara Sorribes Tormo, where she earned a 7-5, 6-1 victory. Of course, it was impressive to see Andreescu win in her return to action, as she hadn’t won a match since Wimbledon in 2023. But I just have a hard time believing that Andreescu will be able to find the level required to beat a rock-solid player like Kalinskaya this early in her comeback. Kalinskaya is a better server than Sorribes Tormo, so there won’t be many easy breaks for Andreescu. And longer rallies should go the way of Kalinskaya, if we even see a lot of them. Andreescu’s rust should manifest itself at some point, and it could come in the form of a lot of unforced errors.

Bet: Kalinskaya ML (-150)

Added Plays

Viktoriya Tomova ML (+110) vs. Xinyu Wang [French Open]

Irina-Camelia Begu ML (+134) vs. Linda Noskova [French Open]

Bernard Tomic ML (-105 – 1.5 units) vs. Yuta Shimizu [Little Rock Challenger]

Wednesday’s Plays

Click here. (Some of these are still playable because of rain delays.)

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