French Open tennis betting preview: Maria Sharapova- Eugenie Bouchard
In the first meeting, she beat Muguruza by eight games, her serve was electric and she just cannot be at that level today, we have seen no evidence of it and it is unlikley in the extreme anyway. Plus, the Spanish player is much improved and showed no nerves in seeing off Serena Williams in R2 , or subsequently, that win gave her great confidence and she is yet to drop a set at RG. Still only 20 yo she is improving on a month by month basis and is a big hitter and tactically sound, she cut out the angles for Serena, thumping calls to centre court and that tactic can work equally well today, especially if she can mix that up by trying to draw Masha off the baseline, with the Russian only really happy with straight side to side play and out of her comfort zone in any other direction.
I accept that she is far more at ease on clay now and not the same girl who was described as moving with the grace of an elephant on roller stakes on the surface early in her career, but if you can get her moving forwards (not so easy) she can be beaten. If the rain does slow things up a little, that could also work in Muguruza's favour and I expect her to keep this close.
She has met just two solid performers in the tournament Stosur and Muguruza and could easily have gone out to either , we know that Sharapova will never give up, but she looks vulnerable on clay, her movement was not the best again on Tuesday and the serve is up to it's old tricks , she is fading in and out of games and any strong player and we know that Bouchard is going to the top of the game, will take advantage of those dips. This is the Canadian's second consecutive slam semi final and she was impressive against a proven old school clay court player in Carla Suarez Navarro in the semis. The two met here last year in the second round, with Masha winning 6-2 6-4, two things about that, as in the Muguruza notes, Sharapova is very unlikely to be able to serve as well again as she she did that day (there has just been no evidence of it at RG this year), secondly, this is not the same Eugenie Bouchard who played last year, the 2014 version is a very different animal, one who believes she is closing in on her rightful place at the top of the tennis food chain. She has a big game and confidence to go with it, the experience gained in Melbourne will help her today and she will offer far stronger resistance than Stosur or Muguruza if this goes to a deciding set. 1.25 units Eugenie Bouchard +4 games 2.04 Pinnacle Sports..... there is 1.80 + for 4.5 games in places and that is the line which will be traded on Betfair.
Subscribing to clubgowi need not break the bank. Our paid service provides in-depth analysis on over 100 sporting events each month, all for as little as 2.73 euros per day. In 2013 there were 1,317 selections, stakes were 1,707 units, producing a profit of 260.5 units, at a ROI of +15.26%. Find out more by visiting our subscriptions page.