The second week of the French Open begins on Sunday with the bottom half of the singles draws being played down to the quarter final stage and as you would expect from the Last 16 of a Grand Slam we have some excellent matches in store for us. Unfortunately the weather forecast is awful for Sunday which is less than ideal.
Saturday recap
It was a disappointment for the French crowds on Saturday as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was forced to pull out with injury during the first set of his match with Ernests Gulbis when he was 5-2 up and they didn’t get any more joy in the women’s side of the action as Kiki Mladenovic, Alize Cornet and Pauline Parmentier all got sent packing in a frantic day around a huge storm.
For our bets it was a better day as Dominic Thiem covered the handicap and the match between Carla Suarez-Navarro and Dominika Cibulkova had more than enough games for us to celebrate but sadly Pablo Cuevas couldn’t build on a first set win and surrendered 3-1 to Tomas Berdych. That said two out of three isn’t bad.
Elsewhere there was a five set win for David Goffin and comfortable successes for Novak Djokovic, Roberto Bautista Agut and David Ferrer. There were straight sets wins for Madison Keys and Elina Svitolina as the last 16 draw was completed.
Sunday – Men’s Matches
Andy Murray is the star attraction from a British point of view on Sunday although with the rain around and him being third on court he might not see the red clay at all. Another man who will be in the spotlight will be Milos Raonic after it was announced that John McEnroe is joining his coaching team.
Murray faces John Isner in a match he is widely expected to win although whether he can cover a 6.5 game handicap remains to be seen. I’ve a feeling he will win but fall short of that handicap. You’ve got to think that as good as a returner of serve that Murray is that he will struggle to break this Isner delivery very often.
You have to think there will be a tie-break or two in this match and were Murray to win them that would be a disaster for backers of him with the start because he is unlikely to end up winning any sets by a couple of breaks. With that in mind I’m going to side with the Isner serve and take him to stay within 6.5 games.
Raonic faces Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the last 16 and while I would expect the Canadian to come through there Ramos does like the clay so he could cause the odd issue along the way which wouldn’t be ideal from a betting point of view. There is enough in Ramos for me to sit that one out.
Kei Nishikori vs Richard Gasquet would appear to be the highlight of the day on Sunday. These two players are in excellent form but I took Nishikori outright and I’m sticking with him but I don’t need to justify a bet on him at a short price.
The other match sees Viktor Troicki trying to beat Stan Wawrinka for the first time in his career. Troicki ended a personal hoodoo with Gilles Simon in the previous round but Wawrinka is a different cup of tea entirely and I expect the Swiss star to be too good there but the prices reflect that too.
Sunday – Women’s Matches
The pick of the matches in the women’s draw on Sunday is up straight away as Svetlana Kuznetsova takes on Garbine Muguruza in what should be a great match. We’re already on Kuznetsova outright so we’ll put our feet up and hope that she can get the job done.
In the other standout match Simona Halep faces Sam Stosur in another tasty looking encounter. Halep has looked strong this week but you can never count out Stosur when she is an underdog so I’ll be interested to see how she goes in this one.
The other two matches on the day sees Irina-Camelia Begu facing Shelby Rogers in a battle of the surprise packages while Tsvetana Pironkova’s reward for making it this far is a clash with the number two seed Agnieszka Radwanska.
There isn’t a whole lot that interests me in the women’s event on Sunday so I’m going to keep my money in my pocket and take just the one bet overall in a day that looks set to be disrupted by the rain.
Tips
WON – Back J.Isner (+6.5 games) to beat A.Murray for a 4/10 stake at 1.95 with Bwin
Back him here:
