We are approaching the middle weekend of the French Open and on Thursday the second round of the tournament will conclude amid a raft of big names taking to the courts at Roland Garros.
The tournament is bubbling up nicely and with Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal all on the schedule of play for Thursday we are set for another exciting day of tennis.
Wednesday recap
It had been a good couple of days for us betting wise to begin the week but things turned sour on Wednesday when Nick Kyrgios and Agnieszka Radwanska were both far too good for their opponents which resulted in a pair of losers so we’ll be looking to repair the damage on Thursday.
Away from betting Andy Murray was involved in another five set epic while Stan Wawrinka cruised into the next round as did the likes of John Isner, Richard Gasquet and Kei Nishikori. Shocks were few and far between in the women’s event on Wednesday too with Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza and Petra Kvitova all flying into the third round. Our pre-tournament picks Lucie Safarova and Svetlana Kuznetsova emphatically joined them.
Thursday Men’s Matches
As has seemingly been the case all week so far there are some sizeable handicaps for the big names to cover here but as I’ve mentioned throughout we’ve seen too many examples of the seeded players struggling for me to even consider the big caps.
There is one 50/50 match on the card though which sees Joao Sousa taking on Ernests Gulbis. Gulbis was a semi-finalist in this tournament in 2014 but he hasn’t been past this stage of a Grand Slam since which isn’t exactly ideal.
In fairness Sousa isn’t the most talented player known to man but he’s pretty fit and pretty durable and comes into the event off the back of a decent run in Madrid recently which should have done plenty for his confidence.
Gulbis has had a hit and miss season so far as you would expect for someone who can be brilliant and awful, often both in the same set. The reason why I’m looking to take the Latvian on here is he seemed to have an injury in the first round. He had a medical time-out and if he isn’t fully fit the last thing he needs across the net is a bloke who is going to run all day and make Gulbis play more balls than he wants to.
Sousa is the better of the two players at the minute and certainly looks the fitter of the two and I’m hoping that plays out into a win for the Portuguese player in my only punt in the men’s draw for Thursday.
Thursday Women’s Matches
The same story applies in the ladies matches on Thursday although with the shocks of the first round in the top half of the draw there isn’t so many big names in action. One that is in action is Serena Williams and she is expected to have a cruise into the third round.
There are a couple of close looking matches in the women’s draw on the card. One of them is on Chatrier last up when Timea Babos takes on Kristina Mladenovic in a battle of two ladies who are probably better known for their doubles exploits than their singles.
I have to say I found it weird that Mladenovic is the outsider of the two having a 3-1 head to head lead but I couldn’t really find anything in the respective form lines to justify a punt so I’ll leave that match alone given the losses of Wednesday.
I will take one bet though and that is on Julia Goerges who I was really impressed with in the opening round. Goerges blasted Jo Konta off the court and that isn’t an easy thing to do these days and now she faces Monica Puig for a place in the third round.
Puig’s form has gone on a down trend since her run to the final in Sydney at the beginning of the year and I think she is there for the taking for a form horse like Goerges who actually showed signs of form in Nurnberg in the run up to this tournament not just against Konta.
Puig leads the head to head record between these two 2-0 but it is dated enough for it to be largely irrelevant and so with that in mind I’m going to take the lady who impressed me the most in the first round and that is the German.
Tips
Back J.Sousa to beat E.Gulbis for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back J.Goerges to beat M.Puig for a 4/10 stake at 1.82 with 888sport
Back her here:
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