There have been some fair criticisms of the scheduling of the French Open, but the weather has really not played ball with the organisers.
What has been a positive is the standard of matches we have seen through the first nine days at the tournament.
We saw more of that on Day 9 as Novak Djokovic fought back from 2-1 down in sets to earn yet another Quarter Final spot at a Grand Slam event. Following that was a really good match between Alexander Zverev and Holger Rune for the Night Session crowd and hopefully there is more top quality tennis for the fans to enjoy in the days ahead.
Coco Gauff - 4.5 games v Ons Jabeur: Winning a Grand Slam means everything to those starting on the professional tennis tour and Ons Jabeur has made no secret of her desire to win one of her own. She reached three Grand Slam Finals between 2022 and 2023, but came up short each time, and the window is most definitely closing.
Wimbledon may prove to be her best chance with so many players uncertain about playing on the grass and Ons Jabeur reaching the last two Finals in SW19, although the defeat to Marketa Vondrousova last year has had a big impact on her tennis.
However, Ons Jabeur has matched her best run at Roland Garros by reaching the Quarter Final here for the second year in a row and that despite dropping down to World Number 9. These days there are four players who look to have moved clear of the rest of the pack and Jabeur will likely have to beat three of them if she is going to win the title here next Saturday.
First up is Coco Gauff, the US Open Champion and a player who has reached the Quarter Final at Roland Garros for the fourth time in a row. Despite making her breakthrough on the Tour at Wimbledon, the American World Number 3 has produced her most consistent Grand Slam results in Paris, which may come as a surprise.
On the other hand, watching Gauff play on the red dirt and it becomes very easy to understand why she is so effective on this surface.
Beating Iga Swiatek remains the biggest challenge for any player on this surface, but Coco Gauff has shown she can handle most other challengers very effectively. She has barely broken a sweat to move through the four Rounds played at the 2024 French Open and it says something about Coco Gauff that the last three defeats at Roland Garros have all been to the eventual Champion (Barbora Krejcikova and Iga Swiatek twice).
Ons Jabeur has only dropped one set of her own during this four match winning run, but her numbers prior to the French Open were pretty average and this is a big step up.
The expectation is that Jabeur will pick up more than a single game as she did when being crushed by Coco Gauff in the WTA Finals at the end of last year, but it also should be noted that the Tunisian only managed four games in a routine defeat to this opponent at Roland Garros in 2021. The improvements made by Coco Gauff since then makes her more dangerous and the feeling is that she will be able to come through this match with another strong win.
Iga Swiatek - 6.5 games v Marketa Vondrousova: The defending French Open and defending Wimbledon Champions meet in the Quarter Final at Roland Garros in 2024 and the layers have Iga Swiatek down as a big favourite.
That may be harsh on Marketa Vondrousova, who is a former Finalist in Paris, but there is no doubt that this is a massive challenge for the player who will be opening up Centre Court on Day 2 of the Wimbledon Championships in July.
During this tournament, we have managed to back Vondrousova a couple of times with solid returns, and that underlines her qualities on the clay courts. She is a good player, one that moves well enough and can cause problems with her groundstrokes, but it has also been a kind draw for the Czech player to exploit and that all changes massively on Tuesday.
This time she has to play the two time defending Champion Iga Swiatek who has recovered from almost losing to Naomi Osaka in the Second Round exactly how you would come to expect. In her last two wins, Swiatek has not needed to spend any significant time on the court and has dropped just six games having faced a Match Point in her eventual win over Osaka.
Sixteen straight wins on the clay courts means Iga Swiatek will arrive with a lot of confidence whenever she feels the red dirt under her feet.
She will be extremely happy on the main court in Roland Garros and the World Number 1 has been able to dominate opponents on this surface.
To add to that aura, Iga Swiatek will begin this match knowing she has won all three professional matches against Marketa Vondrousova and all relatively comfortably. There were two strong hard court wins over the lefty last year after a competitive first set, but this surface is one where Swiatek should have more of an edge and she can find the breaks of serve needed to cover this big line.
Jannik Sinner - 5.5 games v Grigor Dimitrov: The potential of winning a Grand Slam has not been realised by Grigor Dimitrov so far in his career, but there may be an opportunity to do something special in 2024.
However, you would have certainly placed the French Open at the bottom of the Grand Slam pile when it came to ranking the likelihood of the Bulgarian winning one of the four tournaments played.
2024 is the first time in his career that Grigor Dimitrov has made it into the Quarter Final at the French Open and it is a surprising run considering the inconsistent results in the build up to the tournament. The win over Hubert Hurkacz in the last Round is a solid one, but even the strongest of Dimitrov fans will accept that their player has made use of a very good section of the draw.
That is the benefit of being a top ten Seed in the tournament, but this is now a big step up for Dimitrov when he faces Jannik Sinner.
The Italian has not had much tennis under the legs after picking up a hip injury in Madrid which meant missing a home tournament in Rome. It meant Jannik Sinner arrived in Paris under a cloud of doubt, but he has held up pretty well even if his preparation was perhaps not as it should have been.
There is still a chance that Jannik Sinner will leave Paris as the new World Number 1, but the focus will be on picking up a second Grand Slam title having beaten Daniil Medvedev in Melbourne. Jannik Sinner reached the French Open Quarter Final on debut in 2020, but has not made it back this far until doing so this year and that is perhaps a real surprise considering how well he can play on the red dirt.
He had some troubles in the Fourth Round win, but that may actually have hardened Sinner for the business end of the tournament and this has proven to be a good match up for him in recent meetings with Grigor Dimitrov.
It was the Bulgarian that won their only previous meeting on a clay court in 2020, but Jannik Sinner has won the last three in a row and all on the hard courts where Dimitrov would have felt more comfortable than on this surface. In those three wins, Sinner has dominated behind serve and managed to keep the pressure on Grigor Dimitrov and this is how this Quarter Final may end up being played out.
The World Number 10 is playing well enough to perhaps edge a set, but Jannik Sinner may end up breaking him down and that may see him dominate one or two sets in order to clear this handicap mark.
Carlos Alcaraz - 5.5 games v Stefanos Tsitsipas: With Novak Djokovic struggling for form and both the World Number 2 and Number 3 clouded by injury concerns, Stefanos Tsitsipas has to have arrived in Paris feeling like a first Grand Slam could be earned.
He has been close- he has reached four Grand Slam Semi Finals and two Grand Slam Finals, but the Greek player has ultimately come up short. However, his best results have tended to be in the first half of the season and Stefanos Tsitsipas will be playing in his fourth French Open Quarter Final in five years.
One defeat from the previous three will give Tsitsipas confidence, although that one defeat came against the player who will be standing across the net from him on Tuesday.
Carlos Alcaraz was beaten in Madrid and had to miss Rome with a forearm issue, but he did find a way to be involved here at the French Open. The defending Wimbledon Champion will hold this Grand Slam very dear to the heart, as it is for many Spanish players, and he is playing in his third straight Quarter Final here.
Last year he looked to have all of the momentum against Novak Djokovic until being hit by severe cramps and barely being able to move and Carlos Alcaraz admitted feeling 'scared' early in this tournament with the forearm at the forefront of the mind.
That was perhaps evident in his Second Round win, but the World Number 3 is playing with a lot more confidence now and this has been a match up where he has been incredibly successful.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is trying to be more aggressive on the backhand, but it is an area that Carlos Alcaraz has exploited in previous matches and the latter will be looking to make it six wins in a row against the Greek player. The previous five wins have included three wins on the clay courts and the numbers in those matches heavily lean towards Carlos Alcaraz, which underlines the feeling that this is a good match up for him and he has the ability to negate the early Tsitsipas aggression and force mistakes and short balls from the other side of the net.
The forearm issue does raise some doubts, but Carlos Alcaraz looks quite healthy and he can find the big points at the big moments to come through with a strong win in this Quarter Final.
MY PICKS: Coco Gauff - 4.5 Games @ 1.72 Coral (2 Units)
Iga Swiatek - 6.5 Games @ 1.83 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Jannik Sinner - 5.5 Games @ 1.80 Coral (2 Units)
Carlos Alcaraz - 5.5 Games @ 1.83 Bet Victor (2 Units)
French Open Update: 14-5, + 11.66 Units (38 Units Staked, + 30.68% Yield)
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