Two Roland Garros winners clash on grass!
Jul 10, 2024
WTA Wimbledon: Jelena Ostapenko- Barbora Krejcikova
We have a quarter final today between two winners of the French Open who have only once gone beyond the QF of any other slam,although Jelena Ostapenko would have to be considered a grass court specialist, Barbora Krejcikova not, but maybe she is starting to believe that she can win on the surface.
There are few players more fun to watch in tennis than an inform Jelena Ostapenko, or even an out of form JO to be honest. She is ultra aggressive and early in her career , her playing style was famously dubbed, "see ball, hit winner!"
We have always done well with her and the year she won Roland Garros as a 19yo she was totally unplayable. Early in 2022 I touched upon all of that and the issues she had faced subsequently and with her game .......
Jelena Ostapenko is a one off, a world class talent on her day, who won Wimbledon as a Junior, the 2017 French Open at age 19, broke into the top 10 ( reaching as high as 5) , but who's ranking has bounced around the 20-50 mark for the last two years. She has had some real second serve demons and can/could basically only play one way, which is to try and hit as hard a winner as possible from every ball , regardless of position on court, that was always fun to watch, but must be frustrating to coach and she just cannot help herself.
I spoke about much of this at Eastbourne last summer ............
Jelena Ostapenko has some big scalps already here at Eastbourne, Pavlyuchenkova , Jabeur and Kasatkina, the last two made the final last week in Birmingham and are on the rise. The Latvian made the Wimbledon semi finals in 2018 and the last eight in 2017, she has 28 wins on the surface and within that, winning records against top 50 (17-10), top 20 ( 6-4) and top 10 (3-2 ) players, at Eastbourne she is 9-4.JO is a bit of an enigma, she has a relentless approach almost always going for her shots and can be unplayable when it all clicks, witness her 2017 Roland Garros win as a 19 yo , but has always lacked consistency and has had huge serve issues and her second serve has long been a liability , but she ranks herself the best returner in tennis and she is definitely up there in that category. I think she has been unlucky, she had major upsets ( injury and losing a parent ) just as two of the last three tennis years were about to start and that made it difficult to build momentum or get into a groove, as the off and early season is vital for that IMO and her ranking fell from #5 to #82. She looked on the up once more, but then last year her father passed away and COVID stalled everything.
She actually won that event, her first tournament win for 21 months and later had a really nice run to the semi finals in Indian Wells and came to Melbourne ranked #27 (highest since May 2019) she is clearly at least of that top 20 ability and higher when things fall into place, but you have no way of truly knowing when that might be. However, in slams she is usually a little more focussed and is 32-16 v players ranked 21+ and a fine 22-7 v those 51+ and Riske is right in the middle of those two, but perhaps fortunate to be ranked as high as she is currently.
The two have faced each other just once before and it came in a hard court slam in the 2019 US Open, Ostapenko won 3&4 (in R2 same as today), the Latvian star hit 53 unforced errors/ 17 double faults (!!!) and still only dropped 7 games, which is close to impossible, but augurs well for today. She was double faulting almost three times as much through that period as she is now, it is still a concern at times, but looks increasingly less so, he said with fingers crossed ! She opened with a three set win over Schmiedlova , dropped a good lead in the tie break to drop the first set , but continued to play patiently which is real progress, she waited for her chances and eventually got on top, winning 8 of the last 9 games .
She is back up to #10 in the live rankings this morning and a win today would take her to #9, her highest for six years and she is firmly back on track. Ostapenko is 46-19 on grass versus players like Krejcikova who are ranked 21+ and that more than tallies with her odds of 1.48 to win today, but her Czech opponent is no normal #32 ranked player. First up, she is up to #22 on the live list and would be #18 with the win. Also, she was similarly ranked (#33) when winning the 2021 French Open and went directly to Wimbledon that year and reached the R16 here which is very difficult without a warm up event, before losing in a close match to eventual champion and world number one, Ash Barty. Her clay court season ended early this year and that has allowed her to prepare properly for Wimbledon and today will be her 9th match on grass and she has the talent to push Ostapenko and the two met on the surface last year (Birmingham final) which JO won 7-6 (10-8) 6-4. It was as close as that sounds, the ultimate battle of power against guile and Krejcikova disrupted the Latvian's rhythm with her variety of shots and that performance has, I feel, given her confidence that she can now play on the surface and beat Ostapenko on it.
If forced to pick the winner I would have to go with Ostapenko, but that is not the name of the game and I see her chance as more of the 57-60% variety and any value has to be with ............
2 units Barbora Krejicova to win @ 2.84 Pinnacle/ Vegas Line.
Either way, this should be a fun watch!
Good luck!
We don't just sell football betting tips, as you can see there is an extensive analysis behind our asian handicap selections. Subscribing to our sports betting advice service need not break the bank. Learn more by visiting our subscriptions page.
Sport: