MATCH POINT: Our new tennis tipping column now looks at the Women’s French Open tournament. Defending champion Simona Halep is progressing well but there’s been plenty of shocks in week one at Roland-Garros so is there BETDAQ value elsewhere?
Have deliberately left the Women’s tournament to the start of the second week just to get more of a clue on current form on the clay surface at Roland-Garros.
My pre-tournament selection for the Men’s, Dominic Thiem is still in (the good news), but he’s making much harder work of his matches than I expected. Fingers crossed he settles into something more of a rhythm this week and he has a potentially tough fourth round match on Monday as he takes on Gael Monfils.
Monfils comes into this on the back of a straight sets win against Antoine Hoang and the Frenchman will have plenty of home support but the head to head stats favour Thiem. The pair have met four times with Thiem winning all four, most recently in Buenos Aires last year. BETDAQ make Thiem around 1.42 to win the match and if he does it in straight sets it will settle his nerves (and mine !!) and that can be backed at around 3.6.
Just 12 remain in the Women’s tournament (some fourth round games still to be played) with the market headed by defending champion Simona Halep at around 2.86.
Halep progressed to the fourth round with an easy 6-2 6-1 win over Lesia Tsurenko on Saturday but the tourney looks wide open so I wouldn’t want to be rushing in to back the Romanian at relatively short odds.
There’s been plenty of first week shocks. Notably world number 1 Naomi Osaka who lost 6-4 6-2 to the unseeded Katerina Siniakova who is better known for her doubles prowess.
It brought to a shuddering halt Naomi Osaka’s remarkable winning run and this was her first defeat in a Grand Slam since 7 July last year.
Three-time champion Serena Williams also came a cropper to an unseeded player in the third round. Fellow American Sofia Kenin stormed to a 6-2 7-5 win over Williams on the Philippe Chatrier court where she had a mixed reception from the crowd after repeatedly checking the umpires decision on line calls.
How high to rate Kenin is debatable. To her great credit, she’s reached the fourth round of a Slam for the first time in her career but received a walkover in the second round and there’s little doubting that Serena Williams was a long way short of her best.
The two giant-killers Siniakova and Kenin do look massively over-priced however at 65 and 52 respectively on BETDAQ and at those kind of prices we can keep them on side for very little downside.
A bigger bet though on Sloane Stephens is called for. The American should progress past Great Britain’s Johanna Konta in the Quarter Finals. Konta has beaten Stephens twice this year but under the pressure of a Slam on clay Stephens looks favourite and she can fully be expected to run deep into the tournament as she did last year when a losing finalist here.
Stephens comes into this on the back of a straight sets win over Garbine Muguruza which I was impressed with and I recommend taking the 6.2 on BETDAQ for the title.
MATCH POINT BETS:
8 points win SLOANE STEPHENS to win French Open at around 6.2 on BETDAQ
2 points win KATERINA SINIAKOVA to win French Open at around 65 on BETDAQ
2 points win SOFIA KENIN to win French Open at around 52 on BETDAQ
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