French Open: 3 unseeded players with the best chance to make the second week
Through five days of the French Open, there has been a fair share of upsets throughout the ATP draw. Here are 3 unseeded players that can continue their upset runs into the second week.
Grand Slams are filled with storybook upsets fit for the front pages and this is abundantly clear through the first five days of the ATP’s premier clay event: the French Open. Of course, some of the best players in the world have moved through their first two rounds with ease; Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Dominic Thiem have all notched back-to-back straight set wins and look like the three players with the best odds to take the title in 11 days.
On the other end of the spectrum, some of the tournament’s unseeded players have also put together solid openings themselves and will look to pull off the upset wins of their careers coming up in order to extend what is most likely their best Grand Slam results to date. Here are three unseeded players that have the best shot at making the French Open’s second week.
1. Jannik Sinner
The hype around this teenage star is off-the-charts, but by all means fair. Jannik Sinner has impressed everyone in the tennis world with his powerful ground game, impressive court coverage, and sublime touch around the net. He possess what some consider the “complete package” and is certainly proving his worth as the future of the sport.
In his Round 1 match against David Goffin (which he took in straight sets (7-5, 6-0, 6-3), Sinner was everywhere on the court and looked virtually perfect in every category. He was efficient on serve, winning 42-of-54 points off of his first serve while saving 4-of-6 break points.
On the return side, he took the majority of points off of Goffin’s second serve (53%) and put together a decent stat line while returning his oppoenent’s first (41% first serve return points won). Keep in mind, Goffin only mustered 12-of-54 points off of Sinner’s first serve while losing 7 of the 11 break points he faced. It was the third career top-ten win for the youngster; he took out Goffin at the Rotterdam Open and Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Italian Open just last week. Sinner’s rise to the top is speeding up.
Why he ranks at the top of this list is due to his comfortable draw for the next couple of round. He faces Guillermo Corda in Round 3 with the struggling Alexander Zverev projected to be his 4th Round matchup. It’s extremely helpful that Sinner doesn’t have any of the top three seeds to deal with; Zverev’s inconsistencies have often plagued him throughout his career (most notably last month during the US Open Final) and could prove to be a key advantage for Sinner to make his first-ever Grand Slam quarterfinal.