Tennis
We are in to the second week of the 2018 French Open and nearly down to the quarter finals stage. The top half of the men’s draw play their fourth round matches today and if they win they’ll find themselves only two matches from a place in the coveted final. Nadal continues his march to an unprecedented eleventh title today and he faces a new challenge in the shape of the unseeded Marterer from Germany, who is aged 22 and ranked 70 in the world.
I imagine Marterer will put up a good fight as he’s been in good form of late winning seven of his last ten clay court matches, which included wins against good players like Schwartzman, Fucsovics and Shapovalov, and nerves will also play a part as the enormity of his situation eventually hits him. Nadal has looked as dominating as ever, especially in his last two matches, he’s yet to drop a set and I expect that trend will continue today against Marterer.
The other three men’s fourth round matches between eleventh seed Schwartzman and sixth seed Anderson, third seed Cilic (advised to Win Second Quarter) and eighteenth seed Fognini and ninth seed Isner and fifth seed Del Potro look more competitive. This will be Andersons and Schwartzman third meeting and Anderson leads the head-to-head 2-0 including there only meeting on clay at Nice back in 2016.
Cilic leads the head-to-head against Fognini 3-1, they won one each on clay against each other, but they’ve not met since 2014. If Cilic continues to serve well and play aggressively like he’s been I see him eventually over powering the at times brilliant and erratic Fognini and coming through in four sets.
The remaining men’s fourth round match is between Del Potro and Isner and this will be there eleventh meeting. Del Potro leads the head-to-head 6-4, but Isner won the last two at Paris indoors last November and at the Miami Masters 1000 Series back in March this year. This is there first match on clay and as Del Potro is the more at home on the surface I think he will edge this one in three or four close sets.
The quarter final line up for the men’s bottom half of the draw is twentieth seed Djokovic against surprise package Cecchinato, who is unseeded and currently ranked 72 in the world, and second seed Sascha Zverev and seventh seed Thiem. This is the first meeting between Djokovic and Cecchinato and with the former world number one and twelve time Grand Slam winner looking more like his old self with every game I can’t see him losing this one.
This is Thiem and Zverev’s seventh meeting; the young Austrian leads the head-to-head 4-2, he has won three of their four clay court matches, but Zverev won their last meeting on clay in the final at the Madrid Masters 1000 Series last month. Zverev has had to expend far more energy to reach this stage after playing and winning three five set matches back-to-back against Lajovic, Dzumhur and Khachanov, while Thiem has only dropped two sets against Berrrettini and Nishikori in his four matches. Thiem has looked the more impressive of the two reaching this stage and having the experience of already reaching the last two French Open semi-finals I think he will justify favouritism on this occasion and edge this one on four or five sets.
The women’s tournament is warming up nicely with the current world number one and two still in the draw, but second seed Wozniacki was trailing Kasaktina 7-6 3-3 when their fourth round match was suspended last night due to bad light. However, while the top two seeds would normally be dominating the headlines at this stage of any other Grand Slam, they have had to take a back seat to the dramatic runs of former winners and world number ones Sharapova and Serena Williams. Serena has dominated most of their previous meetings, she leads the head-to-head 19-2, won all three of their matches on clay in straight sets, including at the French Open back in 2013.
Serena has also won the last eighteen matches in a row against Sharapova, who last beat her nemesis way back in November 2004. Sharapova has played more competitive matches than Serena this year, who is making her come back after having her first child. This could hand a small advantage to Sharapova, but the way Serena has improved so much with every match this fortnight and is already fighting as if every game were her last, i can only see history repeating itself on this occasion.
