Semi-Western Presents: Serious Roland Garros 2025 Men's Singles Predictions
Very serious and absolutely not vibes-based
Qualifying (and a handful of 1st Round matches) for the second Major of 2025 is done, which means we can finally give the people what they want: a set of predictions that we can all laugh at in about 18 hours when it all goes horribly wrong.
If I’m going to be spectacularly wrong, then goddammit I’m going to do it my way. That said, in the interests of making this interesting, I’ve set two ground rules:
Predictions will only be optimistic - I’m not going to predict who underperforms
Minimal mentions of Sinner or Alcaraz
With that, our first category:
Finals Prediction
Winner: Carlos Alcaraz d. Jannik Sinner in 5
Nominees: Alcaraz d. Sinner in 4, Sinner d. Alcaraz in 5. Sinner d. Alcaraz in 4.
…and immediately we break the rules.
It’s pretty simple: Carlos Alcaraz is the best clay court player on Tour, and Jannik Sinner tore through Rome like a Terminator (fitting given his all black fit). These two have pretty clearly separated themselves from the rest of the Tour, especially on clay.
The first set of the Rome final was some of the most entertaining tennis on the ATP tour this year. Let’s hope for 5 more of those in two weeks.
The Young Gun Who Makes a Name for Themselves:
Winner: Ethan Quinn
Nominees: Joao Fonseca
Fonseca has already gotten a lot of play in tennis media (and this site). He has a tricky but winnable match against Geneva finalist Hubert Hurkacz, and after that, he wouldn’t need to play a seeded player until the 4th round (potentially against Alex De Minaur). He is the smart choice, but also the boring choice.
Ethan Quinn as an archetype does not scream “successful on clay”. He’s an American (strike 1) who played college (strike 2) and only started playing main draw European clay matches this year (strike 3).
But he’s also successfully qualified for two clay ATP main draws, and is on a 3-match winning streak, coming through Roland Garros qualifying, and he’s playing Grigor Dimitrov, who’s had his fair share of struggles in the longer 5 set format.
Quinn has a big game, no weak side that can be punished, and appears to be getting comfortable with moving on clay. He also pushed Alcaraz to a tiebreaker in Barcelona, so he can reach a pretty high level already. The only question mark is whether he has the fitness to go 5 sets.
The Old Man Who Proves He’s Still Got It
Winner: Novak Djokovic
Nominees: Pablo Carreño Busta
I would rather look a fool for picking Djokovic, than look a fool picking against him. He has made Quarter-Finals or better every year since 2010, and I don’t think there’s anyone who can really stop him except potentially Medvedev in the round of 16. He’s also just coming off of title #100, with two hard-fought wins against Hurkacz and Norrie. There are two ways to look at this: he’s coming into Roland Garros with a lot of confidence, or he’s not 100% fresh and won’t recover well enough to have staying power in the latter rounds of the tournament.
I want to shoutout PCB, who beat the ascendant Francisco Comesana (who apparently was NOT smoking a cigarette in this photo) in the 1st round, and plays Francis(co) Tiafoe in the second round. He’s been in the wilderness for the last few years, coming back from major elbow issues and having to rebuild his ranking from scratch. I’m hoping his story is one of someone rediscovering his form, rather than of someone who is finding that the Tour has passed him by.
Someone’s Who’s Had a Good Clay Season and Continues Their Momentum:
Winner: Lorenzo Musetti
Nominees: Francisco Cerundolo, Jack Draper
Musetti is on a tear right now. Finals in Monte Carlo (lost to Alcaraz), Semis in Madrid (lost to Draper), Semis in Rome (lost to Alcaraz again). All this to say, he hasn’t taken a bad loss on European clay this year, and just cruised through his 1st round against Hanfmann. Musetti is a phenomenal defender, and the clay gives him more time to load his loopy groundstrokes, express his creativity, and showcase his shotmaking. According to Tennis Insights, he still struggles to convert on offense, and his serve is below tour-average, but he makes up for it with his defensive abilities.
Draper is going from strength to strength this year: he won Indian Wells, made the finals in Madrid, and is #4 in the live race. At this point, he’s just a great player, and will have his own quarter of the draw pretty soon. He’s pretty much above average in every metric, but he’s been especially standout in both Return and Serve during the European clay events.
Cerundolo has also proven that he is a top clay player, and he has a chance to notch a signature win if he makes it to the 4th round to face Alexander Zverev. He can create a lot of offense out of his forehand, though his movement and serve hover around tour-average, so he’ll have to prove that he can stay on the front foot for long enough to win in the extended format.
Someone’s Who’s Had a Bad Clay Season and Turns It Around
Winner: Alexander Zverev
Nominees: Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas
Zverev wins sort of by default: he has a very friendly draw and will probably make it to the Quarters, likely facing Djokovic for a chance to make it to the Semis.
On Tsitsipas, Gill Gross put out a pretty damning statistic in his RG preview: Tsitsipas has won only 6 clay matches this year, compared to his previous years of being well into the double digits. There’s no other way to put this: he’s had a very poor clay season, but I think that he can at least hold his seed and make it to the round of 16 where he’ll likely play (and lose to) Alcaraz.
Medvedev is a noted Clay hater, but his movement and tactical guile should still get him to the Fourth Round against Djokovic. We’re still pretty far from seeing peak Medvedev, because his serve continues to not win him easy points, but he won’t be expecting to win easy serve points on clay anyway. His 1st round against Norrie is going to be a grind-off, so get ready for long points and extremely flat backhands.
The Out-Of-Nowhere Cinderella Story (Best Unseeded Player)
Winner: Vít Kopřiva
Nominees: Filip Misolic, Alexandre Müller
The easy choice would have been Müller, who is coming off of a Quarter-Final appearance in Hamburg. That said, he’s won an ATP 250 this year, and he’s one of the highest ranked non-seeded players, so he’s not really “out of nowhere”.
Misolic has a potentially easy route to the 3rd round, with his first round against Bu Yunchaokate (no main draw wins during this year’s European clay swing), and a potential second round with either Pedro Martinez (not the pitcher) or Denis Shapovalov (who’s had a pretty anonymous European clay season).
Kopřiva is ranked 86th in the world (near his best of 85), has had a decent clay season so far (R32 in Rome with a win against Baez, win against Sonego in Marrakech), and made it through a tough five-setter against Thiago Monteiro. He has a few days off before he has to face either Daniel Altmaier (obligatory “He beat Sinner at RG in 2023” mention) or Taylor Fritz (not quite the “Claylor” of 2024).
Kopřiva has a pretty standard Czech build, with strong flat groundstrokes off both wings, a metronomic shot selection, and an interesting serve motion where his toss (left) arm only goes up a little bit after releasing the ball. Against Monteiro, he proved he can go the distance, and also can withstand a barrage to his backhand. If he plays Fritz, he’ll have to prove he can mix things up a little bit, as the predictable metronomic pace will play right into Fritz’s hands.
The Dream Matchup (Non-Sincaraz Category)
Winner: Paul vs Alcaraz (QF)
Nominee: Fils vs Sinner (R16)
Bending the rules slightly here - at least I’m not choosing the Sincaraz matchup!
My 4 ingredients for dream matchups
A++ athleticism on both sides of the court
Guaranteed A++ effort
Tactical versatility, and a willingness to try different things (instead of playing the same point 80 times over)
A partisan crowd
Every time Tommy Paul and Carlos Alcaraz plays, it’s fireworks. Something about the fact that Paul is capable of playing lockdown defense pushes Alcaraz’s creativity and shotmaking. Paul is also willing to mix things up by coming to net and trying to gain every advantage he can to make up for his lack of power behind the baseline. I want to see it again.
Fils and Sinner are an interesting contrast of styles. Sinner has whippy, easy power with loping, bounding movement, while Fils is the new Dean of the Dominic Thiem School of “putting everything into every shot”. Fils will also have the French crowd behind him, ready to explode the moment he hits an insane passing shot or a deft drop volley.
Please Tennis Gods, make this happen!
The Best-Performing American
Winner: Tommy Paul
I guess I spoiled my pick here, but Paul is the best American clay-court player right now. He took a set off of an imperious Jannik Sinner in the Rome Semi-Finals, and has the defense, fitness, and consistency to make a deep run. He does have Casper Ruud potentially waiting for him in the Round of 16, so his time in Paris may stop there.
The other Americans haven’t done much in any of the lead-up tournaments. Fritz hasn’t been playing up to his ranking, Shelton has a tough draw, and I have to emotionally hedge on Sebastian Korda (as the #1 non-family property owner on Korda Cove).
The Best-Performing Czech and Czech-Adjacent
Winner: Jiří Lehečka
This category has gotten a lot less fun with Machac retiring in his match against Halys. Lehečka’s path is likely going to end when he plays Sinner in the 3rd round, I think Menšík is still trying to figure out his game on clay, I am high on Kopřiva, and see above on how I feel about Korda (I have to protect my peace).
The Third-Best Performing Italian
Winner: Flavio Cobolli
The top two podium spots are spoken for with Sinner and Musetti, but it’s a pretty intriguing race to see who will be the third-best Italian. Cobolli is coming off of a big win in Hamburg, where he proved he could get the better of Andrey Rublev in forehand-to-forehand exchanges, and could survive enough of the times when Rublev has an inside-out forehand. His path to the second week potentially involves fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi (or FAA), and Zverev, so he has to prove that his sometimes leaky forehand can tighten up and be an effective weapon more times than not.
Winner of the Most Ridiculous Shot of the Tournament
Winner: Ben Shelton
This isn’t just what is aesthetically the most ridiculous shot - context and stakes matter too. A tweener lob is more impressive when you’re break point down at 5:5 in 4th set of the Round of 16 than when you’re 40:0 up in the first game of the first set of the 1st round.
How I think about who would win this:
Do they have a track record of hitting highlight shots?
Do they have the requisite athleticism to put themselves in a position where they have to make a crazy shot?
Are they insane/confident enough to try something at a critical point in the match?
This eliminates the usual suspects (Gaston, Bellucci, Moutet) because they aren’t likely to go deep in the tournament.
Ben Shelton is my pick - he has the imagination, athleticism, and he’s lefty which just makes everything look better. And he almost made this shot already in his 1st round match against Sonego:
Not sure why he felt the need to try to hit this instead of a normal backhand, but we have track record, athleticism, and insanity!
