Line Calls, presented by FanDuel: At +800 to reach the Roland Garros semifinals, back Belinda Bencic

Elena Rybakina is coming off one of the oddest championship runs in recent memory. The Kazakh’s opponent retired in three of the six matches she played—one of them being Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals and another being Anhelina Kalinina in the finals. Rybakina did earn conventional victories over Jasmine Paolini, Marketa Vondrousova and Jelena Ostapenko on her way to lifting the Italian Open title in Rome. And those latter wins say a lot about where here game is right now.

Rybakina is now 40-18 on clay at the WTA level, and she’s also 13-4 on the dirt over the last 52 weeks. Maybe winning Wimbledon and playing some stellar hard-court tennis over the last two seasons has thrown people off a bit, but Rybakina grew up on clay and generally likes playing on the slow surface. Sure, she doesn’t move quite as well as Swiatek on the dirt, but who does—and she moves well enough and understands how to win on these courts. Rybakina is especially effective when redirecting pace on this surface, and her big serve also happens to give her a slight edge in most matchups.

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Rybakina just won her first important clay title, in Rome, with the help of three retirements along the way.

With all of that in mind, it’s a little surprising to see that Rybakina is going off at +650 odds at Roland Garros. A couple of weeks ago, we said that Swiatek was a good bet to win the French Open, but things have changed quite a bit since then. Now, the best strategy when playing this event is probably to just put a unit down on both Rybakina and Sabalenka—along with potentially throwing some darts on some longer shots like Ons Jabeur or Marketa Vondrousova.

With Sabalenka winning Madrid and Rybakina winning Rome, these two have shown that the gap between them and Swiatek is smaller than ever. When you add in the fact that Swiatek is likely playing on a hamstring that isn’t at 100 percent, it’s just tough to suggest laying -125 on the Pole in Paris. You’re better off having a few tickets that pay out at longer odds and hoping that somebody can knock Swiatek out earlier than expected.

Rybakina consistently makes deep runs in the biggest events, so there’s something about the big stage that brings out the best in her. She’s unflappable mentally, especially when facing other top players. We saw it in Rome, when she lost the first set and went down a break against Swiatek. She battled back to win the second set, and then Swiatek had to retire in the third. That type of fighting mentality is exactly what you want in a long-term play.

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