French Open women's singles preview, analysis, predictions & free tennis tips

Tennis analysis, predictions, tips and best bets for the French Open women's singles, which starts at Roland Garros in Paris on Sunday.

When to watch

ITV4 & Eurosport, from 10am Sunday

Best bets

Garbine Muguruza to win title
1pt 7-1 general

Sloane Stephens to win fourth quarter
1pt 22-1 Betfair, Paddy Power

Preview

Whichever way you look at this year's French Open women's singles, it's difficult to get away from the fact that Garbine Muguruza could take a lot of stopping in her bid to land a second Roland Garros singles crown.

True, Simona Halep, top seed in the absence of world number one and last year's Paris clay heroine Ash Barty, fully deserves her place at the head of the market after collecting titles in Prague and Rome since the return from the initial coronavirus lockdown.

The Romanian, Roland Garros champion in 2018 and a finalist in three of the last six years, will be feeling confident, especially since reuniting recently with her favourite coach Darren Cahill.

But Halep is no bigger than 11-4 and while she is getting more comfortable in her role as one of the WTA Tour's leading figureheads - witness the way she demolished opponents on the way to winning Wimbledon last summer - she would be no certainty to repeat her close win over Muguruza in Rome earlier this month.

Muguruza has been playing well all year, before and after the cessation of sport. Last winter she took time to improve herself as a person via a number of character-strengthening exercises such as mountain climbing and that looks to have had a positive effect on her tennis.

She has been well backed since the return and particularly so following Rome. But while single-figure quotes pretty much mean that each-way punting is barely worth it, she can still be backed to make it two Parisian clay wins in five years.

Halep's top half of the draw - Muguruza is in the slightly easier bottom half in quarter number three - looks tougher with Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Elena Svitolina, Elise Mertens, Kiki Bertens, Johanna Konta and last year's runner-up Marketa Vondrousova all in the mix.

So for a second bet it could pay to look at the open-looking fourth quarter. The favourites to reach the semi-finals are Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova, but there could be value in opposing that duo with Sloane Stephens.

The American, US Open champion in 2017, was runner-up to Halep at Roland Garros two years ago. She can be considered at 100-1 outright and 50-1 to make it two finals in three years, but the 22-1 that she reaches the last four is well worth a punt.

Stephens is an all-or-nothing performer - it's fairly easy to tell when she's in the mood - and considering there have been a number of promising displays in recent weeks the chance to support her looks well worth taking.

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