Jannik Sinner arrives in Roland-Garros as bigger French Open favorite than Rafael Nadal in all 14 of his titles

Let’s make something perfectly clear. No one here is arguing that Jannik Sinner is as good a clay court player as prime Rafael Nadal.

We’re just here to tell you that the ATP No. 1 is currently a bigger favorite to win the French Open than Nadal was in all 14 of his Roland-Garros titles. Which is an achievement in itself.

Here’s how the numbers work out. Sinner is currently around a -325 favorite to beat out a field, which does not include Carlos Alcaraz, for his first Roland-Garros title. Below are Nadal’s odds each time he began the tournament in Paris, going back to his title in his debut in 2005 (data via Sports Odds History):

You might notice that Nadal was -400 in 2009, the year he took his first Roland-Garros loss to Robin Soderling in one of the biggest upsets in tennis history. So Sinner isn’t a bigger favorite than Nadal ever was, just in the 14 years the Spaniard won the tournament.

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At the very least, it’s fair to say that despite having never won Roland-Garros, Sinner is a prime Nadal-level favorite this year, for reasons that go beyond just being excellent at tennis.

Not to say he hasn’t been excellent at tennis.

Why is Jannik Sinner such a big French Open favorite?

Obviously, Sinner has seen some success recently. 

He is entering the tournament on the longest winning streak of his career, having won 29 straight matches across five Masters 1000 tournaments (Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome). His last loss was to Jakub Mensik in Doha on Feb. 19.

It’s a ludicrous run that has already placed him in exclusive company. That includes entering a club of two with Nadal, as the Spaniard is the only other player in tennis history to sweep the three clay Masters 1000s, having done so in 2010.

But the other reason he’s so heavily favored is the fact that when it comes to the players around him, the waves have parted in a way he may never see again in his career.

Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

The obvious story is that Alcaraz, his chief rival and the guy who stunned him in the final of last year’s Roland-Garros, will miss both this tournament and Wimbledon with a wrist injury, for which publicly available details remain scarce. That’s the big absence, and one that tennis fans hope is just a one-off.

As for the people actually in the draw, it is not an understatement to say every other challenger has some significant reason to doubt their chances against the Italian:

• Alexander Zverev (+1000) has lost his past nine matches against Sinner, the most recent being a 6-1, 6-2 demolition in the Madrid final, and hasn’t won a tournament at all since Munich in 2025, 13 months ago.

• Novak Djokovic (+1200) hasn’t won a match on clay since…last year’s Roland-Garros. He missed most of this year’s clay season due to a shoulder injury and lost his return match in Rome to 20-year-old qualifier Dino Prizmic. He admitted after the match that he was still missing a half-step.

• Casper Ruud (+2000) is the most recent player to lose to Sinner, in a Rome final that came with little drama or reason to believe the outcome would be different in a five-setter. He has a 0-5 record against Sinner.

• Arthur Fils (+2000) and Rafael Jódar (+2000) are the next two on the odds leaderboard. They are, respectively, 21 and 19 years old, with Jódar in his first year as a full-time professional. Neither of them have reached even a Grand Slam quarterfinal. They are winless in a combined three meetings with Sinner.

• Daniil Medvedev (+4000) has a 53% winning percentage at Roland-Garros, by far his worst Grand Slam performance, and has reached only one quarterfinal, which he lost in 2021. He has lost his last five meetings to Sinner, going back to the 2024 US Open.

• There isn’t anyone with odds better than +5000 outside of that group. That is how barren the list of actual contenders is.

If Sinner loses at Roland-Garros, it will be a titanic upset in some way. We shouldn’t act like it can’t happen, though.

Jannik Sinner looked human at one point in Rome

Perhaps the biggest factor against Sinner is fatigue, considering he’s played the maximum number of matches at five straight Masters 1000 tournaments. He looked particularly drained in the Rome semifinal against Medvedev, who has a habit of making stars look uncomfortable.

Sinner looked like he would make short work of the former ATP No. 1 in the first set, but he hit a wall in the second, visibly limping and doubling over as if to throw up at one point. He looked anguished on the bench between games:

Sinner managed to get through it, though, leveraging one of the best serves in tennis for easy points to keep that set competitive and then finding a second wind to go up a break in the third set before rain forced a suspension into the next day.

The match ended as a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 victory for Sinner, who had this to say after the match:

“I knew before the match it could be very physical,” said Sinner, who was bending over between points against Medvedev. “First set I played really well, then the conditions became very, very heavy. It was tough to get through. But in the same time I tried to understand what’s working best. I tried to play with the best energy possible. Yesterday was very tough.”

Not the words of someone who thinks they’re untouchable, as much as he might sometimes look it. For what it’s worth, Medvedev is +3300 to win Roland-Garros.

Beyond that match in Rome, Sinner’s struggles in hot weather are well-documented, and he has lost to people other than Alcaraz before. The brilliance he’s shown on his current run has created an air of inevitability, but all it takes is one day where, say, his serve is off or the other guy is feeling it at the baseline to shock the world.

Would Jannik Sinner’s Roland-Garros title come with an asterisk?

Let’s just say it really shouldn’t, for now.

Yes, Sinner’s chances at winning his first Roland-Garros are significantly helped by the knowledge he won’t have to run into Alcaraz, who beat Sinner on his way to both of his French titles. If you want to discuss the dynamics of this particular tournament, it’s fair to bring that up.

However, tennis — like other sports — is ultimately about beating the people in front of you, and Sinner will have done that if he hoists the Coupe des Mousquetaires. May all of the criticisms against our accomplishments be as weak as “the only guy in the world who can beat him wasn’t playing.”

Plus, it’s hard to think of a way to make evaluating tennis history more miserable than trying to keep track of which trophy was won with which top players out. That’s all hypothetical for now, though, so maybe just wait until after the tournament to start the debate.

It’s a similar story at Wimbledon

We already know Alcaraz won’t be in the field as Sinner defends his Wimbledon title, where his odds to do so are similarly overwhelming at -275.

So let’s just do this same exercise with Roger Federer between his first and final Wimbledon titles (odds again via Sports Odds History).

Right now, Sinner is a bigger favorite at Roland-Garros than Rafael Nadal at all 14 of his titles and at Wimbledon than Roger Federer at all eight of his titles (and every other year too). Djokovic, a seven-time Wimbledon champ, was never favored as highly as -275 either, for that matter.

Get well soon, Carlos.