The French Open tennis tournament moves into the quarterfinals. It’s a special situation in tennis at Roland Garros. All eight players in the quarterfinals have never won a Grand Slam singles championship.
On Monday, we saw four entertaining matches with two of them needed the full three sets while two of them ended quickly. The shortest match of the day involved tournament favorite, Simona Halep. She’s the odds-on favorite to win the French Open and she disposed of Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-1. The other straight sets result came from Caroline Garcia. She took out Alize Cornet 6-2, 6-4. Cornet is from France and a crowd favorite, but she was no match for Garcia on this day.
We also saw Elina Svitolina advance as she beat Petra Martic. Martic was a handful, though, as she took the first set 6-4 but then ended up losing the next two sets. The other three-setter on the day was Karolina Pliskova’s win over Veronica Cepede. Cepede also took the first set in this matchup, winning it 6-2. However, while she won six games in the first set, she would only go on to win seven games the rest of the way.
Looking ahead to Tuesday, there is both a unique burden on these players, and a powerful sense of opportunity. Which players are going to play freely, and which players are going to be anxious and less than their best? Will players play at a similar level, or at very different levels? Here are Tuesday’s Two quarterfinals.
Kristina Mladenovic vs. Timea Bacsinszky
For Kristina Mladenovic, the French Open has taken on some familiar themes. She knows how to use the crowd well, and she knows how to win in pressure situations late in matches. Mladenovic was down 3-0 in the third set in the first round against Jennifer Brady, but came back to win. She was down 5-2 in the third set of the third round against Shelby Rogers, but she came back to win. She won a very tough third set in the fourth round to knock out defending French Open champion Garbine Muguruza and dramatically improve her chances of going all the way to win a historic championship for France, the country she represents on the WTA Tour. Mladenovic is riding a wave of momentum, and that will be hard for Bacsinszky to deal with.
Bacsinszky has, for the second straight year, advanced to the quarterfinals by beating Venus Williams in the fourth round. In 2015, Bacsinszky also reached the quarterfinals, but that year she went one step beyond, making the semifinals before losing to Serena Williams in a tough match. Bacsinszky is a very crafty player, which makes this a match of similar styles. Both players like to use the drop shot and can hit the ball with all sorts of spins and angles. It’s an even match on paper, but Bacsinszky has shown periods of frailty at this tournament. She led Venus, 5-1, in the first set of Sunday’s fourth-round match, but then lost six straight games. Mladenovic seems to be the slightly steadier player, and in a match this big, a slight difference might make the whole difference.
Pick: Mladenovic in three sets
Caroline Wozniacki vs. Jelena Ostapenko
Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Ostapenko are not only familiar with each other, but especially on clay, where they have met twice in recent months. In early April in Charleston, Ostapenko blitzed Wozniacki, losing only six games. In Prague a few weeks later, the match was much closer. Wozniacki had a match point, but Ostapenko saved it and won a third-set tiebreaker. Wozniacki, though, knows that she has steadily gotten better on clay against Ostapenko, and in a moment which is this significant, Wozniacki – who has played in Grand Slam finals on multiple occasions – is more familiar with the pressure of this stage. Ostapenko might be confident, but Wozniacki should gradually be able to adjust and hang in the match, eventually playing well enough to force Ostapenko into mistakes. This is a close match, but one Wozniacki should win. Take her with your tennis picks in this spot.
Pick: Wozniacki in three sets
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