Daily Tennis Tips – Monday 26th May

See below for our expert daily tennis tips and best bets around the courts for Monday May 26, 2025!

One of only two seeded Australian players at the French Open, Alexei Popyrin gets his campaign underway against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka.

World No.25 Popyrin made the Monte-Carlo Masters quarters with wins over Ugo Humbert, Casper Ruud and Frances Tiafoe, but his clay swing has been comparatively modest since.

He beat Nicolas Jarry and Jacob Fearnley at the Geneva Open last week before going down to Cameron Norrie.

Popyrin has not won a French Open match since his first appearance at the tournament in 2019, when he got to the second round.

Nishioka, meanwhile, made it to the fourth round at Roland Garros in 2023.

The world No.77 has played only one match on clay in an injury-hampered lead-in, however, a straight sets loss to Dusan Lajovic at the Rome Masters.

Nishioka won their only previous clash in three sets at the 2023 Adelaide International. But his lack of court-time has to be a huge concern against a player of Popyrin’s quality who has bookended his build-up with some solid wins.

Boom Aussie teenager Maya Joint makes her French Open debut against veteran compatriot Ajla Tomljanovic.

Joint already has a psychological edge over Tomljanovic, who retired at a set down in their Rabat Grand Prix clash on the weekend.

The 19-year-old finished a dream week in Morocco with the singles title without dropping a set – thrashing Jacqueline Cristian in the final – and the doubles title. Her clay swing also including tight losses to big guns Emma Navarro in Madrid and Emma Raducanu in Rome.

Joint has subsequently surged to No.53 in the WTA rankings.

Injury-prone Tomljanovic is ranked 71st and was looking good at Rabat before breaking down against Joint, beating Viktoryia Tomova and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.

The 31-year-old, a Wimbledon and US Open quarter-finalist, made it to the fourth round at Roland Garros on debut in 2014 but hasn’t been past the second round since.

Though the grand slam stage may cause a few nervous moments, in-form joint should take this one out.

French Open 17th seed Daria Kasatkina plays her first grand slam since switching her national allegiance from Russia to Australia, taking on world No.63 Katerina Siniakova in the first round.

Kasatkina has dominated this rivalry, winning five of their six matches – most recently at the 2024 Ningbo Open. She also won clay-court encounters at the 2019 and ’20 Rome Masters, though Siniakova’s sole victory was also on clay, at the 2022 Hamburg Open.

But Kasatkina’s underwhelming clay season to date culminated in a heavy first-round loss to Emma Raducanu (6-1 6-3) in Strasbourg last week. She was a French Open semi-finalist in 2022 and reached the quarters in 2018.

Siniakova – who has won three doubles titles at Roland Garros – made it to the last 16 at the 2019 French Open and has a singles clay-court title on her CV (2017 Swedish Open).

The Czech went winless in her French Open build-up at tour level, however, including a three-set defeat to world No.122 Aliona Bolsova at the Rabat Grand Prix last week.

Kasatkina shapes as solid value to progress without too much trouble here.

Aussie journeyman Christopher O’Connell and French 22nd seed Ugo Humbert square off in the first round at Roland Garros.

O’Connell won their only encounter to date, which was also on clay in Munich in 2023, 6-4 6-4.

The 30-year-old Sydney native has performed reasonably well on the clay swing, including wins over red dirt specialist Dusan Lajovic and Nicolas Jarry to reach the Romanian Open quarters.

But he is coming off a heavy first-up loss to Cameron Norrie at the Rome Masters and a Hamburg Open qualifying defeat to Elias Ymer.

History is not on his side either as he has not won a French Open main draw match.

Humbert has not had much joy at his home slam, going 1-6, but he has reached the Round of 16 at Wimbledon and, this year, at the Australian Open.

He is also only 1-4 on this clay swing, only beating Jarry at the BMW Open.

Humbert lost to countrymen Alexandre Muller in Madrid and Corentin Moutet in Rome.

The Frenchman is a $1.46 favourite and still looks the better bet – but O’Connell will ensure he has to work hard for it.