French Open 2020: Schedule, TV Info, Live Stream and Odds for Top Favorites

Rafael Nadal returns to the men's Grand Slam stage at a venue where he has had the most success in his career.

The king of the clay at Roland Garros has won the French Open on 12 occasions in his career, and he is the three-time defending champion in the men's draw. 

The Spanish southpaw's biggest competition will likely come from 2016 champion Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem, who won his first major title at the U.S. Open and lost to Nadal in the last two years in the French Open final.

The women's singles draw is far harder to figure out since there has been no repeat winner at Roland Garros since Justine Henin won from 2005-07.

That trend will continue since 2019 winner Ashleigh Barty has opted to not participate in the season's final major. 

Simona Halep, Serena Williams and Garbine Muguruza are among the previous clay-court champions who will be seeded for the tournament. 

The draw for both singles competitions will be unveiled Thursday. 

French Open Schedule

Dates: Sunday, September 27-Sunday, October 11

TV: Tennis Channel (starting at 5 a.m. ET from September 27-October 9); NBC (October 10 & 11, 9 a.m. ET)

Live Stream: TennisChannel.com, NBCSports.com, NBC Sports app and Peacock.

French Open Odds

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.

Men's Singles

Rafael Nadal (+100; bet $100 to win $100)

Dominic Thiem (+250)

Novak Djokovic (+285)

Daniil Medvedev (+3000)

Diego Schwartzman (+3300)

Stefanos Tsitsipas (+3300)

Getting Nadal at even money to win on his best surface seems like a steal. 

Even though the Spaniard has not played as often as Djokovic and Thiem since the restart, he is still hard to beat on clay. 

Nadal looked strong in his two victories in Rome, but he fell in the quarterfinals of the tune-up competition to Diego Schwartzman, who could be the best dark-horse candidate to win at Roland Garros. 

Schwartzman knocked out Nadal and Denis Shapovalov before pushing Djokovic to 12 games in the first set of the Rome final. 

The Argentinian has been to three Grand Slam quarterfinals and reached the final eight in 2018 in Paris. 

But he and the other outside contenders still have to get past one or more of the big three formed of Nadal, Djokovic and Thiem.

Djokovic is 31-1 in 2020 with the only loss coming from his disqualification at the U.S. Open against Pablo Carreno Busta. 

The top-ranked Serbian won 10 of his 11 sets to conquer the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome, but he did so against weaker opposition compared to the two-week grind of a Grand Slam.

Thiem has not played since winning in New York in a five-set thriller over Alexander Zverev. 

The Austrian defeated Djokovic in the 2019 French Open semifinals and downed Zverev in the final eight two years ago on his way to playing Nadal twice. 

Nadal owns a 6-1 set advantage over Thiem from those two matches, but the Austrian's recent form may give him the best chance to defeat the Spaniard. 

But until Nadal is consistently outplayed at Roland Garros, it is hard to pick against him, especially with the odds not overwhelmingly in his favor. 

Women's Singles

Simona Halep (+220)

Garbine Muguruza (+800)

Victoria Azarenka (+1200)

Kiki Bertens (+1300)

Karolina Pliskova (+1300)

Serena Williams (+1300)

Elina Svitolina (+1700)

Petra Kvitova (+2000)

Halep appears to be the best choice to win the women's singles. 

She won the 2018 French Open, was one of three top 10 players to make the final eight in 2019 and is coming off a tournament victory in Rome. 

The Romanian is following a similar path into the French Open as Victoria Azarenka did to the U.S. Open final, where she lost to Naomi Osaka. 

Halep won the warm-up tournament to the French Open through a second-set retirement by Karolina Pliskova after she put in a dominant showing in the opening rounds. Azarenka won by walkover against Osaka at the Western and Southern Open before reaching the championship match in New York.

The two-time major winner won all but one of her matches in Rome through straight sets or retirements. Garbine Muguruza was the only player to push Halep to three sets. 

Muguruza is four years removed from her triumph on the Paris clay and conquered a handful of top players on her way to the Rome semifinals. She defeated Azarenka, Sloane Stephens, Johanna Konta and Coco Gauff in Italy.

The Spaniard has reached the fourth round in every French Open she has participated in since 2014. 

Muguruza's consistency on the clay should help her avoid upsets and potentially square off with Halep at some point in the competition. 

Halep and Muguruza are the most trustworthy options in a field that could be littered with upsets. A year ago, five of the top 10 seeds were eliminated by the third round and the same number of players were taken out in the first three rounds at the U.S. Open.

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.

Statistics obtained from ATPTour.com and WTATennis.com.