Scott Ferguson has another three top tennis tips for you as the French Open continues on Wednesday at Roland Garros.
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2pts Polona Hercog to beat Brady at 8/11
- By Scott Ferguson
Polona Hercog vs Jennifer Brady
It's three days in a row on court for this pair, after they both drew the late match on Monday and had to finish yesterday.
Slovenian Polona Hercog took out the 32nd seed Aliaksandra Sasnovich in admittedly not the highest-grade content, but any time you take out a seed 8-6 in the final set, it has to be a positive.
Hercog is a true clay-court grinder, nearly as likely to break serve as she is to hold her own. This season she has won the Lugano title and only lost in subsequent clay tournaments to Rebecca Peterson, Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys (all R1 winners here) for an 11-3 record.
Jennifer Brady is your typical American hard court-loving player, aggressive and keen to keep the points short, but in deep trouble against anyone capable of extending the rally on and on. Her first round win over Ivana Jorovic was encouraging but she scraped through against a player outside the top 100 who also doesn't fancy the red stains on her trainers.
I'm surprised there isn't a bigger gap in prices here, Hercog all the way.
2pts Polona Hercog to beat Brady at 8/11
David Goffin v Miomir Kecmanovic
The winner of this match is unlikely to progress much further with Rafael Nadal sure to be waiting for the victor in the next round, but Belgian stickman David Goffin barely raised a sweat on Monday and is poised to do the same again.
After recently teaming up with coach Thomas Johansson, Goffin is back playing aggressive tennis, moving up the court to shorten points and dominate lesser opponents.
He was ruthless against Ricardo Berankis, admittedly a weaker rival on this surface, with a winners to unforced errors ratio of 32:12.
Serbian teenager Miomir Kecmanovic had the opposite problem in the first round, making very hard work of an American, Dennis Kudla, who is vastly out of form and hates the red dirt.
Kecmanovic plays with a fairly passive, defensive style which wears down players on the Challenger tour, but against the former world no.7, he's going to have to find a lot more to be competitive.
You can see Goffin taking control and running away with this in the end, the games handicap looks the safest bet.
2pts David Goffin to win -7.5 games at evens
Petra Martic v Kristina Mladenovic
Onto Court Suzanne Lenglen for the last preview of the day, a classy encounter between Petra Martic of Croatia and local favourite, Kristina Mladenovic.
After a few injury-plagued years where Martic had a reputation as a player who'd turn up to every Slam to collect her R1 losers' cheque, she is now approaching a career-high ranking and is seeded here for the first time.
Her clay form this season has been superb, winning the title in Istanbul, falling to Caroline Wozniacki in the Charleston semis, and to Sloane Stephens in the quarters in Madrid. In the first round here, she destroyed Ons Jabuer, conceding just three games with strong, steady tennis; committing only eight unforced errors.
Mladenovic is currently ranked in the 50s after being as high as ten early last year. That form is gradually returning, on clay this season she qualified in Madrid, losing to Petra Kvitova and qualified again in Rome, making it all the way to the quarter-finals, succumbing to Maria Sakkari after wins over Belinda Bencic and Ashleigh Barty.
The other match of note this campaign was her knife-edge loss to Martic in Istanbul, going down in a final set tiebreaker.
In three previous clashes, two of them have gone the distance, the other ended in a retirement. These two match up well and I expect this to be a highlight of the second round draw. I lean to Martic to win again, but the local support might give Mladenovic that little bit more to get her over the line.
Rather than focus on a winner, I'll go for another long battle, regardless of who wins.
1pt Martic v Mladenovic Three Sets at 11/8
Odds correct as of 2230 on 28/05/19
