The first singles title of the 2017 French Open will be decided on Saturday when the ladies title is won at Roland Garros and after two absolutely superb semi-finals we should be nicely set for a cracker of a final between Jelena Ostapenko and Simona Halep.
We have the age old clash of the underdog against the tournament favourite so the story has a wonderful background and it will be interesting to see how it finishes.
Jelena Ostapenko
The Latvian newcomer has been a revelation in this tournament. She has come past some seasoned opponents and the impressive thing is that she hasn’t looked fazed in any way at any point in the competition. To a normal person this occasion could be too much but you get the feeling it won’t be for her.
The beauty of the play of the Latvian in this tournament has been her fearless approach to hitting winners. That does, of course, come with a huge unforced error account and when she is off she will be vulnerable but when she hits it well the ball very rarely comes back and that unknown commodity makes her dangerous.
Simona Halep
With Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova not here and Angelique Kerber being knocked out on the opening day of the tournament, Simona Halep has been playing under pressure from the moment she hit her first shot in the event. There was a time she couldn’t handle that sort of pressure but that time has disappeared.
Halep has had a couple of matches in the run up to this final too. She was match point down against Elina Svitolina in the quarter final while she was taken the distance in the semi-final by Karolina Pliskova but she battled through both matches and is now a warm favourite to win her first Grand Slam title.
Head to Head
With Jelena Ostapenko being new on the scene this is the first meeting between the two women. Ostapenko is competing in her first Grand Slam final and Halep her second. The winner will be the first new winner of a Grand Slam since Garbine Muguruza in this event 12 months ago.
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Betting
Simona Halep is a very warm favourite for this match but I don’t think she is going to have this all her own way. There will be times in this final where she will be the dominant player but Jelena Ostapenko is certainly sure to have her spells on top too with the way she is hitting the ball.
The games line in this final is 20.5 and that looks a little on the low side to me. I’m expecting to see at least one very tight set if not two or even three so I fancy that line will be covered and I believe as the player able to play with the least pressure Ostapenko could complete the fairy tale and land this title to cap off an amazing tournament for the Latvian.
Tips
WON – Back Over 20.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
Back it here:
WON – Back J.Ostapenko to beat S.Halep for a 2/10 stake at 3.80 with William Hill
Back her here:
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