French Open 2022 Women's Preview: Jabeur the each-way tip as Swiatek shortens

Dan Weston
21 May 2022

Ons Jabeur is fancied to go deep into the Women's French Open this year

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The women's French Open starts tomorrow, and following Thursday's draw, Dan Weston returns to discuss the outright market...

"One player who I don't foresee facing an early exit is Ons Jabeur, with the Tunisian playing well ahead of Paris and unlikely to face too many struggles in her first couple of rounds."

Back Ons Jabeur each-way in Women's French Open @ 13.012/1

Halep drifts after being drawn with Swiatek

Rather like the men's event with Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal drawn in the same quarter, the top two pre-draw favourites, Iga Swiatek and Simona Halep also achieved the same feat.

With Swiatek currently on a 27 match unbeaten run, practically demolishing all in front of her, it's logical to see the Romanian's price drift to 19.018/1, with Swiatek now into 1.9210/11 as the dominant pre-tournament favourite.

Realistically, it's tough to dispute this - such is her level of dominance over the WTA Tour across the last few months - and also, Halep aside, quarter one looks bereft of main contenders as well.

There should be the potential for Swiatek to steamroller some opposition over the coming weeks in Paris.

Quarter two players likely to be heavy underdog in potential semi-final

Readers of the pre-draw preview may remember that I highlighted a few options for bigger-priced players, with Danielle Collins 85.084/1 and Elena Rybakina 70.069/1 among them.

These two players have been placed in quarter two of the draw, which doesn't look super tricky - the likes of Paula Badosa and Aryna Sabalenka will be major threats though - but the downside to those bigger prices is that in a potential semi-final with Swiatek, any of these players are likely to be heavy underdogs, making it difficult to envisage them being a good back to lay spot.

Jabeur capable of coming through quarter three

In the bottom half of the draw, Naomi Osaka showed the dangers of being unseeded as she takes on the improving Amanda Anisimova in round one, and that's a tricky mini-bracket that they have with Maria Sakkari also a potential round three opponent.

There's also a cracking round two tie in prospect between Olympic champion Belinda Bencic and Bianca Andreescu, so several high quality players will be eliminated in Q3 early on in the tournament.

One player who I don't foresee facing an early exit is Ons Jabeur, with the Tunisian playing well ahead of Paris and unlikely to face too many struggles in her first couple of rounds.

On reputation at least, Petra Kvitova in round three could be a challenge, but the Czech veteran is 0-3 this season and has again been struggling with injury.

However, the problem with backing Jabeur at 16.015/1 is that she's going to be a huge underdog in a potential final against Swiatek, so backing her each-way makes more sense with the Sportsbook at 12/1.

Injury doubt Krejcikova leads quarter four contenders

That's also viable given quarter four is wide open. Last season's winner, Barbora Krejcikova, has had injury issues but has picked up a couple of potentially straightforward early rounds to ease herself into the tournament, while Cori Gauff, Anett Kontaveit and perhaps even Jil Teichmann could make some progress towards the latter stages.

However, no-one in Q4 except for the injury-doubt Krejcikova has combined service/return points won on clay over 105% in the last 12 months, so the bracket looks fairly low-quality but competitive.