French Open tennis betting preview: Serena Williams - Elina Svitolina
May 31, 2016
French Open Tennis : WTA (written 09.00 May 30th)
Serena Williams - Elina Svitolina
We have seen it before from Serena and things can change quickly, but her body language is not the best at the moment, not on court and not in interview, where even her breathing sounded a little odd ! Ahead of her third round match with Kristina Mladenovic I touched upon some of this .....
Serena Williams is always most vulnerable through rounds 1-4 in slams, this is something we have discussed many times previously, of course, once we are in the second week and she has her teeth into an event, she is very hard to beat. She has been handed an easy start this year and a pair of mismatches, ahead of the last I wrote ......
Most of you know that I like to try to oppose Serena Williams in the early slam rounds and will probably think it odd that I have not mentioned her so far, but it was difficult to make a case for her opponent in the first round and it is close to impossible to give any hope toTeliana Pereira of not just winning, but of keeping this close. The Brazilian has already suffered nine first round defeats this year, she did beat Kristyna Pliskova in the opening round here to record just a third ever slam win , but the three players she has beaten were ranked 110/114 and 325 in the world and now she meets the best on the planet ! Pereira has a 16-42 record against top 100 players, she is 6-22 versus top 50 and is 0-7 when playing top 20, losing game margin in those matches is 7-9-5-6-5-6-8, I suppose that makes her +8 handicap look too high and I certainly could not back Williams the younger, given our usual policy,at the quoted line. but this does look a big mismatch and if the line was -7 , I would probably have got involved.
She won that 2&1 and was rarely out of second gear, Serena arrived on court with a bit of a "strop", apparently because the schedulers had dared to put her on Suzanne-Lenglen which is effectively Court 1 .......poor girl ! She is back on Philippe-Chatrier today and is playing the French #1 which will ensure a big crowd and good atmosphere, Serena can lose concentration and her cool when the stands are not with her and they will not be today, but Kristina Mladenovic will need to give the home crowd a little something to feed off. Serena is not quite the confident personality she portrays , is quite a complex character and needs a few things to go her way ( they normally do !), before we see her at her best. There is some heavy rain forecast today for Paris and this could mean the court playing slower.
Mladenovic was in terrible form until two weeks ago, but a decent Strasbourg and wins over Schiavone and Babos has steadied the ship just in time and she has the game to take Serena close if nerves do not get the better of her. The pair have never met before, so it might be a learning curve for both over the opening games, which is probably a plus for the French woman, she has been serving well, winning 68% on first and an impressive 63% on her second delivery through two tough opening round opponents and with some help from the crowd she should get a few cheap points and take six+ games.
She won 6-4 7-6 , Serena could have won a little more comfortably, but equally could have lost the second and then who knows, it sounds odd, but the first set was closer and Mladenovic had chances to break and gave up few opportunities on her own serve. In post match interview, Serena admitted she was not hitting great and she did make more unforced errors than winners and covered more ground than Mladenovic, those I do not look at those distance stats often, but I cannot believe she does more running than her opponent too often ( I cannot find any record of it at all on a quick look) and the winner/error count is VERY rarely that way round, add her current demeanour into the mix and she looks a little more vulnerable than usual right now .
Williams the younger does hold a 3-0 record over Elina Svitolina (pictured), but the 21 yo Ukranian did take a set from her in the Australain Open last year and has improved greatly since then and will move back into the top 20 after this week. She beat Ana Ivanovic comfortably in R3, that was significant, as she lost to the Serbian in the quarter final here last year and had a 0-7 record against Inavonic going into that game, so I doubt she will be too concerned about her record against Serena, it is enough to simply worry about facing the best player on the planet ! Svitolina does have a wildcard in her corner and that is the modern day Queen of the Clay in Justine Henin who has been working with the youngster for several months. Henin was 2-0 versus Serena at Roland Garros and 4-1 on clay, it is the mental side of things she is really helping Svitolina with, but I am sure they will also be discussing a game plan.
There is definitely a top ten player inside Svitolina and she was a junior champion here in Paris and with rain and humid conditions again forecast for today, any slowing of the court, you have to feel will help the younger player and she can push Serena all the way today.
1.5 units Elina Svitolina +6 games 1.925 Pinnacle Sports/Sportmarket.
Good Luck.
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