The Olympics 2024 tennis singles draw will be out soon after the organizers announced the seeded players for the 64-person men’s and women’s draw. Irrespective of that, there are no surprises who the favourites to win the singles gold medal are.
The men’s section of the draw sees the Wimbledon winner Carlos Alcaraz start off an 11/8 favourite to grab the gold medal. This should come as no surprise given that the Spaniard is coming off a stunning performance at both the French Open and Wimbledon where he added two more Grand Slam titles to his kitty.
What makes Alcaraz a bigger favourite is the manner in which Novak Djokovic has struggled with his fitness concerns following a surgery for a meniscus tear and Jannik Sinner’s blow-hot-blow-cold form.
While Sinner did grab the Australian Open title earlier this year and has generally looked solid on court, he has had injury issues as well.
Djokovic is 13/5 to win the one title that is absent from his cabinet – an Olympics gold – while Sinner starts off 3/1 to capture the top prize on a surface that’s not quite his most preferred.
Instead, Alexander Zverev (6/1) could be a preferred pick over Sinner with the defending Olympics gold medallist expected to do well on clay.
The women’s title is a foregone conclusion. Or so the bookmakers would like us to believe anyway.
That can be seen from the kind of gold medal winning odds that are on offer for an Iga Swiatek victory – bet365 have her pegged at a whopping 4/11 for that.
And to a large extent that’s no surprise.
After all, Swiatek’s performances on clay, where this competition will be played, have been superlative. Over the year, Swiatek is 21-1 on the red dirt surface and since the start of the 2020 season, the Polish number one has won 86 matches on this surface and lost a mere eight!
That includes four French Open titles already at an age of 23, on the lines of the all-time clay great Rafael Nadal who had four by the time he was 22.
You can get all the latest singles outright betting odds at the 2024 Olympics here.
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Photo Credit: Daniel Cooper – https://www.flickr.com/photos/196887122@N06/53053015863/
