June 4, 2011

Men’s French Open Final Picks: Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer Predictions

It seems as though virtually every Grand Slam event comes down to this for tennis betting fans. The two clear cut dominating male tennis players meet for the fourth time in a French Open Final in their career, as Roger Federer will look to upset Rafael Nadal on Sunday afternoon at Roland Garros.

Just think about this stat for a second. Coming into this match, Nadal is a whopping 38-1 all-time here at the French Open. His one loss was to Robin Soderling in 2009, a loss that he has since avenged seemingly a million times over in his career, including here in the quarterfinals of the French Open this year. Rafa has just blown through his competition here in Paris, as he has only had to play two more sets than the max. These last two matches against the aforementioned Soderling, the No. 5 ranked player in this field and the No. 4 player in the world, Andy Murray, were supposed to be relatively tough matches for the Spaniard. It wasn’t to be. Nadal rolled in both matches, winning these sets 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 7-5, and 6-4 to make it here to the finale. Getting aces has been difficult with these new balls for Nadal. He had 14 in the first two matches of this tournament, and he has had only nine since that point. Still, he only has nine double faults in this tournament, and he has posted at least six breaks in five of the six matches that he has played. Not bad for a man that has only played 15 sets in that time, eh?

For Federer, this is a match that is about validation. Sure, the Swiss man has done just about everything in his career. He has the career Grand Slam. He has 16 Grand Slam titles. He has over $62M in career prize money won. Yes, it is definitely good to be Roger Federer. However, if he thinks that he is going down as the best tennis player of all time, a claim that he definitely might have when it’s all said and done, he’s going to have to figure out how to beat the king of the clay courts. The championship that Federer won here at Roland Garros came in 2009, the one year in which Nadal was knocked out of this tournament. Aside from that, Federer is 0-3 against his arch rival in this spot in the finale, and he is going to need this win to be able to get this monkey off of his back, per se. Many thought that Federer would have yielded to the hottest tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic on Friday, but that just wasn’t the case. Federer took the match in four sets in an epic battle.

This is the day for Federer. He has overcome virtually everything in the world in this tournament, and he is going to be able to finally get his big time ring at the expense of Rafa. Take Federer +190 in the French Open finale.

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Adam Markowitz

is a staff writer living in the Orlando area. He has covered NFL, MLB, college football, CFL, AFL, NBA, college basketball, NASCAR, golf, tennis, and the NHL for a number of various outlets in his career, and he has been published by a number of different media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel and the Wall Street Journal.