The quarter finals begin at the French Open on Tuesday when we determine the semi-finalists in the bottom half of the draw on the Philippe Chatrier Court at Roland Garros on what looks like being a tasty day of action.
We have three of the top six ranked men on show over the course of the day while there is a real opportunity available for the four women who take to the court. Spots in the last four of a Grand Slam don’t come easily though so we should expect some competitive action.
Day 9 Recap
We hoped we would get some tense matches and some exciting tennis over the seven matches that were on show on Monday but all bar one of them was won in straight sets. The one which wasn’t saw Novak Djokovic come from two sets down to Lorenzo Musetti before the Italian called it quits in the deciding set. Elsewhere, Rafael Nadal, Iga Swiatek, Maria Sakkari and Coco Gauff were high profile and very easy winners.
Unfortunately for us this nightmare tournament continued when Sofia Kenin could offer up no resistance against a Maria Sakkari who is beginning to look more and more like she could be the one lifting the trophy on Saturday afternoon. We needed more than 21.5 games in the match and from the moment that Sakkari took the first set 6-1 that was never really likely to come in. In the end there were only 16 games so we fell well short.
Philippe Chatrier Court
We begin with a pretty important match for the state of our tournament on Tuesday as our one remaining live outright bet Paula Badosa looks to make the semi-final of the tournament when she meets one of only two unseeded players remaining in the women’s draw in Tamara Zidansek. Once they are done Elena Rybakina will look to back up her win over Serena Williams in the previous round when she meets Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has seen off Aryna Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka in the last two rounds.
It is all about the men once the women’s quarter finals are done and that action begins with the finale of the day session which sees Alexander Zverev looking to make the last four of this tournament for the first time. He takes on the only unseeded male remaining in the competition in Alejandro Davidovich Fokina before the night session sees the match of the day taking place when the number two seed Daniil Medvedev meets Stefanos Tsitsipas in what has all the makings of being a cracking contest.
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Betting
I’ll side with a couple of outsiders on Tuesday with the first of those being Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who looks to be hitting the ball really well to me. There was a spell in her win over Victoria Azarenka over the weekend where she was borderline unplayable and it was a seasoned campaigner and former Grand Slam champion she was hitting off the court. You have to give credit to Elena Rybakina in the previous round too. She produced a clinic of clean hitting to see off Serena Williams but was that her mountain that she overcame? We often see players take out Serena at a Grand Slam and then struggle to get going or find the same level in the next match. There has to be more than a good chance of that being the case here because this is as far as the Kazakh has been in a Grand Slam. In a weird twist of fate these two are doubles partners this week but in her last two clay court events Pavlyuchenkova has beaten Madison Keys, Karolina Pliskova, Jennifer Brady, Karolina Muchova, Aryna Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka so she is used to taking the power of clean hitters and overcoming it. The Russian is playing in her seventh Grand Slam quarter final and although being 0-6 isn’t ideal, that experience can be invaluable here and I like her as an outsider.
All the expectation coming into the tournament was that Stefanos Tsitsipas would take a lot of beating in the bottom quarter and that Daniil Medvedev would be out of the tournament by now. The first bit might well come true but the second bit certainly hasn’t yet, and actually Medvedev is looking as home on the Roland Garros clay as he has done anywhere really. All the talk so far has been of clay court records and comfort on the dirt but really clay court form has rarely stood up at all in this competition so it might be that the more relevant issue regarding this match is that Medvedev leads their head-to-head record 6-1. Ironically given that Tsitsipas is meant to be the clay specialist of the two, the Russian has won their only meeting on clay in Monte Carlo a couple of years ago. There is the school of thought that the conditions will slow up enough to favour Tsitsipas here and while I understand that with the only set Medvedev has dropped so far coming in his only night session match to date, the same can be said of Tsitsipas whose dropped set was against John Isner who wasn’t that inconvenienced by any slowing of conditions. We might just have to remember Medvedev is the better of the two right now and more accustomed to going right to the end in Grand Slams and Tsitsipas isn’t. I’m expecting a cracking contest here but one Medvedev can edge at a big price.
Tips
Back A.Pavlyuchenkova to beat E.Rybakina for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with BetVictor
Back D.Medvedev to beat S.Tsitsipas for a 3/10 stake at 2.80 with BetVictor
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