The tennis event at the 2024 Paris Olympics is being held on the clay courts of Roland Garros, which is bad news for anyone not named Iga Swiatek. At just 23 years old, Swiatek is already a four-time French Open champion. She most recently triumphed on the terre battue only two months ago, blitzing everyone in her path aside from a second-round thriller against Naomi Osaka.
That’s not to say that Swiatek is an absolute lock to capture gold. A formidable list of challengers includes Osaka, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, Jasmine Paolini, and reigning Wimbledon champ Barbora Krejcikova.
Here are my best bets for the women’s side in Paris.
Iga Swiatek (-175)
The men’s side is somewhat up for grabs (even though Carlos Alcaraz has won two consecutive Grand Slams), at least relative to the women’s. Olympic gold on the WTA side would be close to toss-up on any other surface, but on the red clay of Roland Garros it’s a borderline slam dunk for Swiatek. The top-ranked Pole does have a difficult draw at the Paris Games, but you still cannot pick against her at this particular setting.
Jasmine Paolini (+2400)
Paolini has been sensational from start to finish in 2024, and what is especially notable is that she has been getting it done on every surface. The fifth-ranked Italian won the WTA 1000 event in Dubai on hard courts and has finished runner-up at each of the last two majors–on the clay of Roland Garros and the grass of Wimbledon. Clay has generally been her favorite surface over the years, so she should be especially confident in returning to Paris. It’s also worth noting that Paolini has pretty much an ideal draw in the much weaker bottom half, so the door at least to the final is wide open and perhaps she could get lucky with someone like Rybakina or Jelena Ostapenko upsetting Swiatek in the top half.
Naomi Osaka (+2200)
One woman and one woman alone came close to taking down Swiatek at this year’s French Open. In fact, mathematically Osaka could not have come any closer to getting the job done. The Japanese star had a match point to upset the world No. 1 only to succumb 7-6(1), 1-6, 7-5. Even though Osaka has not done much in between these two stops at Roland Garros, she can never be discounted on the big stage. After all, she is a four-time major champion–having won both the Australian Open and U.S. Open twice each.
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who ya got?