Men's French Open Outright Tips: Alcaraz to start new era of dominance

• Alcaraz favourite ahead of Djokovic

• Medvedev leading the chasing pack after Rome title

• Sinner also picking up market support

Alcaraz price drifting after Thursday's draw

Thursday's draw created plenty of talking points, with the top two market leaders, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, both being drawn together in the top half of the draw due to Daniil Medvedev sneaking the number two ranking following his title in Rome.

Market sentiment is that this is a bad thing for Alcaraz, with the Spanish phenom drifting from 2.707/4 pre-draw to a current 2.8615/8 in the outright market, with Djokovic's price staying static at around the 3.45 mark.

The big market movement following the draw continues to be Stefanos Tsitsipas from a negative perspective, with the Greek man utterly friendless in the market and now drifting to 26.025/1 at the time of writing.

Daniil Medvedev 12.011/1 continues to have market support, while Jannik Sinner 20.019/1 into 15.014/1 post-draw, also has been popular with punters.

Djokovic with something to prove still this season

Over the last couple of days, I've been considering matters in a little more detail with the additional knowledge of the draw. I actually think Alcaraz and Djokovic in the same half causes as many issues, if not more, for Djokovic than it does Alcaraz, given the Serb's elbow issues and only winning 60% of sets on clay this season so far.

It does mean that if the tournament goes along with seeding, which is pretty likely, that Djokovic should get drawn into a longer match with Alcaraz than he might like with those injury concerns, and would be a supreme test of fitness.

Stats-wise, Alcaraz is dominant over Djokovic on clay this season. He's won around 1.5% more service points and has a similar advantage on return as well, so his status as favourite should be correct even if we don't consider Djokovic's elbow. It is clear to me that Alcaraz is the best fit clay-courter on tour, and we don't have to complicate matters by thinking about the injured King of Clay, Rafa Nadal.

Alcaraz to be the new King of Clay

With Nadal's illustrious career coming to an inevitable close in the not too distant future, there's space for a new King of Clay, and I'm convinced that will be Alcaraz for a long time to come. He has the ability to dominate the surface and I wouldn't be shocked to see the current market line being as big as you'll see for him at this tournament for some years to come.

The early rounds should hold no fear for Alcaraz, with Lorenzo Musetti or Cam Norrie a potential fourth-round opponent, and Tsitsipas awaits in the quarter-finals, potentially. Incidentally, a seeded run of Alcaraz/Djokovic/bottom half of the draw winner from the quarter-finals onwards for Tsitsipas is a contributory factor towards his continued drift in the outrights.

Competitive bottom half of the draw

In that bottom half of the draw, I'd expect Medvedev and Sinner to fight for Q4 - they should meet in the quarter-finals - while Casper Ruud and Holger Rune, who did battle in the Rome semi-finals last week, face a shootout for quarter three. All four will fancy their chances of making the final in two weeks time.

Given the best of five set format, and long points, sets and matches on clay producing less variance than other quicker surfaces, I'd anticipate things are set up for the big names to progress through to the latter stages here and with a big data differential between him and the field, I simply can't see past Alcaraz here.

It might be boring, but I think with my doubts over Djokovic, I'm willing to keep the tournament favourite onside for the next couple of weeks.