The Quarter Final line up has been set at Roland Garros in 2023 and for the main part the key contenders in both the men's and women's events have made it through to the last eight.
Like many Grand Slam tournaments, some surprising names have joined the elite, but the top names that most would have picked at the start of the French Open look to be in a position to pick up the titles on Saturday and Sunday when the Finals are played.
Day 9 was a mixed one for the Tennis Picks, but a couple of late matches returning winners has meant another small profit to add to the tournament totals.
I was a little lucky with the Coco Gauff pick, but deserved a lot more from the Jarry-Ruud match which somehow ended in straight sets, even though Nicolas Jarry should won at least one set.
There is still work to do with the tournament still having six days to run, but a strong push will mean another good Grand Slam effort after the strong returns from the Australian Open back in January.
Carlos Alcaraz - 6.5 games v Stefanos Tsitsipas: This has been a tournament in which Stefanos Tsitsipas has been very good to me, but I do think he is in for a very tough match up against the Number 1 Seed and arguably the favourite to win the French Open title on Sunday.
He has been flying under the radar somewhat, which is not a major surprise considering Stefanos Tsitsipas has been placed in the same half of thee draw as Novak Djokovic and Quarter Final opponent Carlos Alcaraz. Most will have pencilled in a Semi Final between the two top players in the world, but that won't have bothered Stefanos Tsitsipas who is a former French Open Runner Up and who reached the Final of the Australian Open earlier this season.
It should be said that Stefanos Tsitsipas has not really pushed on from the successes in Melbourne and his clay court season has been a little underwhelming. Wins have been piled up, but the Greek player is only holding a 4-3 record against top 20 Ranked opponents on this surface in 2023 and the numbers have been hugely impacted in those matches with straight sets defeats to Taylor Fritz, Daniil Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz on his record.
Even the run through the French Open draw has seen Tsitsipas beat those he would have been expected to beat and none of the four players he has beaten has been Ranked higher than Number 57.
This could mean that Stefanos Tsitsipas is not as battle tested as he may have liked to be ahead of the toughest test for him- Tsitsipas has never beaten Carlos Alcaraz in four attempts and the last two matches have been pretty one-sided wins for the Spaniard on the clay courts, including in Barcelona in April.
Carlos Alcaraz has only dropped one set in the tournament and his wins over Denis Shapovalov and, especially, Lorenzo Musetti shows the kind of level he is performing at. Neither of those two players caused Alcaraz too many alarms and the World Number 1 is serving at a very high level, while backing that up with extremely positive return numbers.
Returning well against Stefanos Tsitsipas is not easy, but Carlos Alcaraz has broken in 29% of return games played against this opponent, while improving that mark to 33% when only considering the two previous clay court matches.
The attacking approach that Carlos Alcaraz takes with his tennis has offered up some chances to Stefanos Tsitsipas to break serve, but he has held 84% of his service games against the World Number 6 on the clay courts and I do think the Spaniard holds a big edge.
No one will deny that this is a wide spread for Carlos Alcaraz to cover, but he has shown he can get on top of Stefanos Tsitsipas and may just be able to pull away towards the end of the match to get past this handicap mark.
Novak Djokovic - 7.5 games v Karen Khachanov: After a couple of tough matches, Novak Djokovic needed the relatively calmness that his Fourth Round win over Juan Pablo Varillas provided.
He was never in danger of being taken into a deep match, but Novak Djokovic will want to keep more energy reserved in the tank with the expectation that Carlos Alcaraz will be waiting for him in the Semi Final. While this is a much tougher match on paper than the one he just won, Novak Djokovic has been able to deal with Karen Khachanov's threat without too many concerns and it is no surprise that Djokovic is a big favourite to win this match.
There is a clear edge with the kind of levels that these two players can reach on the clay courts, although Karen Khachanov has to be respected in putting together a strong year on the surface.
A win over Andrey Rublev and a tight defeat to Carlos Alcaraz are no mean standards so the Russian player will be playing with some confidence. However, it should be said that Karen Khachanov has already spent considerable time on the court in his four wins in Paris over the last ten days and he may feel he is playing with nothing to lose having come from 2-0 down in the First Round and overturning losing the first set in beating Lorenzo Sonego in the Fourth Round on Sunday.
There will be encouragement in that he is facing a Novak Djokovic who has not been as convincing behind his serve at the French Open and who has dropped serve eleven times in four wins. This might give Karen Khachanov and his relatively limited return game a chance to really get into the Djokovic service games and give himself a chance, but the real issue for the lower Ranked player may be getting enough out of his own serve to really make an impact on the match.
These issues have been clear in their previous matches- Novak Djokovic has managed to hold 87% of his service games played compared with Karen Khachanov's 63% mark, while those numbers become 88% for Djokovic and 62% for Khachanov in the two previous clay court meetings.
One of those was here in the Fourth Round of the French Open in 2020 and Novak Djokovic ran away with a relatively easy win in the Autumn conditions. The warmer ones will help Karen Khachanov, but I also think Djokovic prefers clay court tennis in June rather than October and I do think the World Number 3 will be able to find the breaks needed to ease past his tough opponent.
Novak Djokovic has broken serve at least five times in all four matches in Paris in this event, and he broken Karen Khachanov six times in that match here in October 2020. The serve has been a slight concern, but I think Djokovic will be comfortable with what he will expect is going to come back from his opponent.
Expecting at least four more breaks of serve from Djokovic compared with Karen Khachanov will give him a big chance to cover this handicap mark and I think the Serb is going to be able to do that in this Quarter Final.
Karolina Muchova - 2.5 games v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: If she was not only just on the comeback trail, you could have made a serious case for Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to win this Quarter Final as the underdog.
There had been little sign of the strong displays at the French Open in the warm up events and Pavlyuchenkova had taken some big defeats in the lead up to the second Grand Slam of the season. However, she has always had some capabilities of performing well on the clay courts as a former French Open Runner Up in 2021 and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has been able to turn back the clock in her time in Paris.
Fighting back from a set down three times in a row has to be given a lot of credit, but it has meant spending well over eight hours on the court in those wins. After so little tennis over the last twelve months, you have to believe that Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will be impacted by that and now has to face a tough opponent in Karolina Muchova.
It is Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who leads the head to head and their sole previous clay court match was also won by the Russian two years ago in Madrid, but Karolina Muchova has played the stronger tennis in the tournament. And it is not simply been down to a 'kind draw', but Muchova has also beaten two players in the top 30 of the World Rankings, while being the only one of the two who has a top ten win under her belt in Paris.
There have been a couple of less than impressive wins on her run through the draw, but Karolina Muchova has shown a bit more consistency behind the serve and that could be key to the outcome of this one. Both Muchova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova have returned well throughout their run to the Quarter Final, but the Pavlyuchenkova serve has been the more vulnerable of the two that will be out on court and I think that shows up in this one.
I expect Karolina Muchova to be much fresher of the two players and that can be a real factor in the business end of any Grand Slam tournament, even with the day of rest between matches that the majority of players will get.
That will help Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, but the serve is not performing quite to the level she would need and Karolina Muchova can take advantage in this one.
Aryna Sabalenka - 4.5 games v Elina Svitolina: After only just returning to the Tour as a mother, it is perhaps no surprise that Elina Svitolina has needed some time to find her competitive feet back under her.
Her return was made on the clay courts in Charleston, but Svitolina lost four of her first five matches until reaching the Semi Final at a lower level event. Another First Round exit followed in Rome, but once again Elina Svitolina put a strong run together in a tournament that had not attracted the top players and winning the title in Strasbourg might have just given her the confidence to put this surprising run together in Paris.
Only one of her wins in Strasbourg was against an opponent Ranked inside the top 50, but Elina Svitolina beat Daria Kasatkina in the Fourth Round at the French Open and that is her biggest win by some distance in her 'second career'.
This should give Elina Svitolina some confidence, but I do think Aryna Sabalenka is playing at a completely different level to the majority of the Tour and has all of the tools to really put Svitolina under the cosh.
Unlike some of her opponents this week, Aryna Sabalenka is going to serve very big and she has won at least 65% of points played behind serve in each of her four wins in the tournament. A wobble against Sloane Stephens in the last Round might have previously seen Sabalenka lose all control, but she held herself together very well and the Australian Open Champion is playing with a swagger that is going to be difficult to stop.
Elina Svitolina has returned well enough in the French Open to make up for what has been an erratic serve, but that is not expected to be the case in this Quarter Final. While not someone that is known for being a great returner, Aryna Sabalenka has broken serve seventeen times in her four wins this week and I do think she is going to be able to match that number at least in this one considering Svitolina has dropped serve sixteen times in her last three wins.
I do think the former World Number 3 will get a few more balls back into play to try and put the pressure on Aryna Sabalenka, but Sloane Stephens was trying to do the same and ultimately could not stick with one of the top players on the Tour. After all of the emotional and physical efforts already exerted in this tournament, I think Elina Svitolina will come up short against Aryna Sabalena over the course of ninety minutes in this one and the World Number 2 can find enough breaks of serve to cover this mark set for the match.
MY PICKS: Carlos Alcaraz - 6.5 Games @ 2.00 Paddy Power (2 Units)
Novak Djokovic - 7.5 Games @ 1.91 Paddy Power (2 Units)
Karolina Muchova - 2.5 Games @ 1.83 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Aryna Sabalenka - 4.5 Games @ 1.66 Bet365 (2 Units)
French Open Update: 36-23, + 14.32 Units (118 Units Staked, + 12.14% Yield)
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