This article is part of our Tennis Picks series.
The French Open quarterfinals continue Wednesday with a pair of women's singles and a pair of men's singles matches. Russian players don't have their flag displayed next to their names, but the country's guaranteed to get at least one woman into the semis with two facing each other Wednesday, and a male compatriot has a nice opportunity to keep advancing as well. One prominent teenager was knocked out of the men's singles draw Tuesday, but another will look to keep his run going with what would be his third marquee victory of the tournament. All match odds below are taken from DraftKings Sportsbook, but you can sometimes find more favorable odds on some of these matches by checking other mobile sportsbooks such as FanDuel, BetMGM or Caesars.
How players performed throughout the clay-court season is important, but those results are overshadowed at this point by their play through four rounds at Roland Garros. The stakes are highest at the majors, and the men play best-of-five set matches rather than the best-of-three seen at other ATP Tour events. Conditions vary from tournament to tournament, and even from day to day, but clay generally plays slower than hard or grass, favoring players with better footwork, touch and ability to work the point rather than big servers. Using this context can help pinpoint intriguing betting opportunities, both among favorites likely to cruise to victory and underdogs ready to pull off upsets. The aforementioned underdogs are highlighted in the Upset Alert section, the Lock It In section covers players who can safely be considered overwhelming favorites, while the Value Bet section recommends enticing options in matchups that are considered closer to toss-ups.
Upset Alert
Holger Rune (+170) vs. Casper Ruud
All the pressure in this match will be on Ruud, while the 19-year-old Rune can swing freely, just as he did in his fourth-round win over Stefanos Tsitsipas. Rune has dropped just one set all tournament despite already having faced two top-15 opponents in Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov, as the talented Dane has announced his arrival as a player to watch out for in majors. Ruud leads their head-to-head 3-0, but it's hard to put too much stock into that given how rapidly Rune has been improving lately.
Lock It In
Daria Kasatkina (-190) vs. Veronika Kudermetova
The knock on Kasatkina coming into the Round of 16 was that she hadn't beaten any quality competition, but she had no issue knocking off a top-30 opponent in Camila Giorgi in dominant fashion. After beating Giorgi 6-2, 6-2, Kasatkina has lost just 14 games through four matches. Kasatkina won the only previous meeting between these two 25-year-old Russians last year in Saint Petersburg, and she's ranked nine spots higher than Kudermetova.
Honorable Mention:
Iga Swiatek (-900) vs. Jessica Pegula
Value Bet
Andrey Rublev (-135) vs. Marin Cilic
Rublev has enjoyed plenty of good fortune across this fortnight. The seventh-seeded Russian has faced just one seed en route to the quarterfinals and that was Jannik Sinner, who retired early in the third set of their fourth-round encounter. Cilic has been in excellent form, but facing the world No. 23 presents another favorable draw for Rublev at the quarterfinal stage. This is just Cilic's third quarterfinal appearance in 16 tries at the French Open, and he lost at this stage both previous times he has made it this far. Rublev will be looking to avenge his Australian Open loss to Cilic, but the Russian had won four consecutive meetings between the two prior to that loss.
