{"id":105421,"date":"2026-05-24T23:15:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=105421"},"modified":"2026-05-25T01:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:32:07","slug":"french-open-day-2-mens-predictions-including-rafael-jodar-vs-alexandar-kovacevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/05\/24\/french-open-day-2-mens-predictions-including-rafael-jodar-vs-alexandar-kovacevic\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open Day 2 Men’s Predictions Including Rafael Jodar vs Alexandar Kovacevic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 2 of the French Open will see 24 men’s singles matches as we get into the meat of the first round. The best in the world will fight for their place in Round 2. And, as always, our writers here at LWOT will share their thoughts on who it will be. We split the 24 matches between this article and five others. The other articles feature Stan Wawrinka vs Jesper de Jong<\/a>, Gael Monfils vs Hugo Gaston<\/a>, Ben Shelton vs Daniel Merida<\/a>, Casper Ruud vs Roman Safiullin<\/a>, and Tommy Paul vs Rinky Hijikata<\/a>. Predicting these matches are Zain Mustafa, Manuel Traquete, and Amanda Bergman. Who do you think will win?<\/p>\n

French Open<\/a> Day 2 Men’s Predictions<\/h2>\n

Ugo Humbert vs Adrian Mannarino<\/h4>\n

Zain:<\/em>
\nBoth these players are very ineffective on clay, as they struggle with their movement and rally tolerance. As such, I favor Ugo Humbert’s bigger serve and raw power more than Adrian Mannarino’s flat hitting to come out on top.
\nPrediction: Humbert in 4<\/em><\/p>\n

Manuel:<\/em>
\nOn a hard court or grass this could be a very interesting matchup, but Mannarino has lost all seven matches he has played on clay this season and has never really played well on this surface. It would be a huge surprise if he could even make this one close.
\nPrediction: Humbert in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda:<\/em>
\nBoth Ugo Humbert and Adrian Mannarino will have the support of the French crowd, but only one of these players is comfortable on clay, and that\u2019s Humbert. While both players have struggled to win matches at the French Open in their careers, Humbert is simply more proficient on the surface and is higher-ranked, making this match a likely straightforward win for him.
\nPrediction: Humbert in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrey Rublev vs Ignacio Buse<\/h4>\n

Zain:<\/em>
\nAnother exciting match sees newly crowned ATP champion Ignacio Buse take on Andrey Rublev. It will be curious to see if Buse is fatigued after a title run all the way from qualifying last week in Hamburg. If that is not the case, this can get tight, but I would still expect Rublev’s experience and bigger weapons to win him the match.
\nPrediction: Rublev in 4<\/em><\/p>\n

Manuel:<\/em>
\nBuse had a fantastic run to the title in Hamburg and if he can keep that level up he can definitely beat Rublev here, but keeping up such a high level at this stage of his career will definitely be an issue and all things considered Rublev has the edge here.
\nPrediction: Rublev in 4<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda:<\/em>
\nLast week, Ignacio Buse won his first title. This week, he\u2019ll make his first main-draw appearance at Roland Garros. He\u2019s shown that he can handle the pressure of milestone moments in his career, and he seems primed for an upset against Andrey Rublev. While Rublev has been consistently competitive on Tour this year, he hasn\u2019t been at the Top 10 level he\u2019s capable of and has suffered some recent upsets at Grand Slams. It won\u2019t be easy, but Buse has a real chance to get a monumental win here.
\nPrediction: Buse in 5<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Jenson Brooksby vs Mariano Navone<\/h4>\n

Zain:<\/em>
\nJenson Brooksby’s return to the tour has been inspirational, as he has once again established himself in the Top 100. But here, on not particularly his favourite surface, against a player who is a traditional clay courter, I think Mariano Navone grinds out a win.
\nPrediction: Navone in 5<\/em><\/p>\n

Manuel:<\/em>
\nNavone comes into this tournament fresh off a really disappointing loss to Learner Tien in the Geneva final, but, at least on paper, he has a very good first round draw to bounce back here, with Brooksby struggling on clay and coming into this tournament on a seven match losing streak.
\nPrediction: Navone in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda:<\/em>
\nMariano Navone has always had an impressive level on clay, but he\u2019s never been able to translate it to French Open results. This is a great opportunity for him to notch a rare Grand Slam win, as Jenson Brooksby hasn\u2019t won any clay matches this year and doesn\u2019t have a good history at Roland Garros. Neither player tends to win matches at Grand Slams, and Navone\u2019s clay-court proficiency gives him a hefty advantage.
\nPrediction: Navone in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Rafael Jodar vs Alexandar Kovacevic<\/h4>\n

Zain:<\/em>
\nRafael Jodar’s rapid rise<\/a> this year has been one of the storylines of the season so far, as he has gone from being ranked near 1000 to being seeded for the French Open<\/a>. While Aleksandar Kovacevic’s fast-paced gamestyle might rush the Spaniard, Jodar’s level from the baseline recently has been good enough to see him come through this match without much issue.
\nPrediction: Jodar in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Manuel:<\/em>
\nKovacevic played very well in Hamburg last week, but Jodar has established himself as one of the most promising young players on tour during this clay season and as someone who could well make a deep run in this tournament. He is very unlikely to be seriously troubled here.
\nPrediction: Jodar in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda:<\/em>
\nRafael Jodar\u2019s first appearance at the French Open is as a seed, and that tells you everything you need to know about his momentum coming into this tournament. Jodar has been stellar on the clay courts, and his opponent, Aleksander Kovacevic, hasn\u2019t won enough best-of-five matches to have an experience advantage. Unless nerves are a factor for Jodar, this should be another milestone for him.
\nPrediction Jodar in 3<\/em><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: David Kirouac-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 2 of the French Open will see 24 men’s singles matches as we get into the meat of the first round. The best in the world will fight for their place in Round 2. And, as always, our writers here at LWOT will share their thoughts on who it will be. We split the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1601,"featured_media":81251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1877,15551,43799,43800,511,15413,6162,2942,42433,42832,8212,15981,17817,41890,43245,43459,2941,2373,2369,3638,15614],"class_list":["post-105421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-adrian-mannarino","tag-adrian-mannarino-predictions","tag-alexandar-kovacevic","tag-alexandar-kovacevic-predictions","tag-andrey-rublev","tag-andrey-rublev-predictions","tag-french-open-day-2-predictions","tag-french-open-predictions","tag-ignacio-buse","tag-ignacio-buse-predictions","tag-jenson-brooksby","tag-jenson-brooksby-predictions","tag-mariano-navone","tag-mariano-navone-predictions","tag-rafael-jodar","tag-rafael-jodar-predictions","tag-roland-garros-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-ugo-humbert","tag-ugo-humbert-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105421"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105506,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105421\/revisions\/105506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}