Dan Johnson takes you through his favorite future bets for the 2026 Men’s French Open Quarterfinals this week.
Roland-Garros enters quarterfinal week with the men’s draw suddenly belonging to unfamiliar hands. Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic are gone; 19-year-olds João Fonseca and Rafael Jodar are still standing, each through to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. With a first-time men’s major champion now guaranteed, the 2026 French Open has become a tournament about succession—and whether the next era has already arrived on the Paris clay.
These are my French Open best bets to target on DraftKings Sportsbook for the final day of the third round.
Fonseca’s Paris run already carries the shape of something that will outlive this fortnight. The Brazilian lost the first two sets against Dino Prizmic, then broke him six times across the final three sets. Two days later, he stared down Djokovic on Philippe-Chatrier, again fell two sets behind and produced 30 forehand winners across the final three sets of a four-hour, 53-minute victory. Djokovic broke him early in the fifth. Fonseca broke immediately back, earned the decisive break at 5-5 and finished the match with three consecutive aces.
The harder performance arrived next. Beating Djokovic at 19 can become a career-defining fever dream. Fonseca returned 48 hours later and beat Casper Ruud, a two-time Roland-Garros finalist, 7-5, 7-6(8), 5-7, 6-2. Both players struck 51 winners. Both landed more than 70% of first serves. Fonseca saved seven of nine break points, escaped three Ruud set points in the second-set tiebreak and sprinted to a 5-1 lead in the fourth after the match briefly threatened to swing.
Gustavo Kuerten watched that night from the stands. Fonseca grew up in Rio with Guga as the unavoidable Brazilian clay-court reference point, yet this run has begun creating its own language. His forehand is less artistic flourish than repeated blunt force. His greatest development this week has been his emotional recovery: from two sets down, from early breaks, from the aftershock of defeating Djokovic.
Jodar gives the wager its second route, and his case has been built across an entire spring. The Madrid native began 2026 ranked No. 168. He entered Paris seeded No. 27 after winning Marrakech, reaching the Barcelona semifinals and making consecutive Masters quarterfinals in Madrid and Rome. His clay record is now 19-3. He also defeated Fonseca in Madrid, handling the Brazilian’s pace across three sets.
Jodar’s debut in Paris opened with a 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 dismissal of Aleksandar Kovacevic. The next two matches demanded something different. He survived Alex Michelsen in four hours, 16 minutes, winning 82% of his first-serve points in the fourth set. Against Pablo Carreño Busta, he lost nine consecutive games and fell behind by two sets. He then conceded only five games across the final three sets, winning 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.
His tennis has an unusual calm for a teenager living through the fastest season of his life. Jannik Sinner watched him in Madrid and came away impressed by the clean, effortless sound of his ball-striking. Jodar’s father, Rafael, coaches him from the box. That relationship was there again on Suzanne-Lenglen, his father lifting both thumbs after his son completed another five-set recovery.
The resistance is serious. Jodar draws Zverev immediately, while Fonseca faces 20-year-old Jakub Mensik, a 6-foot-5 problem who has already eliminated Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev. Yet this price offers both teenage paths in a tournament already stripped of Sinner, Djokovic and every former major champion. Fonseca has defeated the legend and the clay specialist. Jodar has spent two months beating the established order.
The measured version of the Fonseca breakthrough ends in the semifinal. It asks the Brazilian to defeat Mensik in the quarterfinal, then run into the last major-scale obstacle remaining in his half of the draw.
Fonseca has already spent 14 hours, 29 minutes on court across four rounds. That workload would usually demand caution from a teenager playing the first quarterfinal of his major career. His match shape has given a different answer. He has improved as the pressure has sharpened. Prizmic kept him without a break point through two sets; Fonseca converted six of seven thereafter. Djokovic had him two sets down and later a break ahead in the fifth; Fonseca found the lines, then the serve, when the finish arrived. Ruud pushed him through nearly four hours; Fonseca won the fourth set 6-2.
Mensik is a substantial test rather than a convenient quarterfinal draw. The Czech survived a four-hour, 41-minute second-round match in oppressive heat, then recovered from losing the opening set 6-0 against No. 8 seed De Minaur. He followed that by beating Rublev in five sets, reclaiming control after losing a two-set lead. At 6-foot-5, Mensik can remove return games quickly and force Fonseca to win with discipline rather than spectacle.
Fonseca has already shown that patience. Against Ruud, he took the first set with a late break, survived five break points across the second set and managed the tiebreak against one of the finest clay-court players of this era. He has also beaten Mensik once before, during his 2024 Next Gen ATP Finals title run. The quarterfinal arrives with risk, yet the Brazilian’s current level supports one more step.
The semifinal would likely introduce a different weight. Zverev has reached the Roland-Garros quarterfinals for a sixth straight year and for the eighth time overall. He dismissed Jesper de Jong in straight sets after an early stumble, converting four of seven break chances. His route still requires surviving Jodar, whose clay season deserves full respect, but the German remains the veteran built to absorb this sort of young-player surge over five sets.
Fonseca has already changed the tournament. A semifinal berth would stamp that arrival while recognizing the accumulated mileage, the Zverev barrier and the difficulty of carrying two historic upsets into a first Grand Slam final.
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