French Open Betting / Ben Caudell / 26 May 2009 /

Julien Benneteau has the goods to despatch compatriot Jo Wilfried Tsonga today, says Ben Caudell.

Top seeds Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer made it safely through to the second round with straight set victories over Marcos Daniel and Alberto Martin respectively. Nadal improved to 29-0 at the French open, equalling the all-time record of Chris Evert, who won 29 consecutive matches from 1974-1981. The Spaniard has only dropped seven sets in those victories and has never been taken to a fifth set in Paris.

Daniel, a regular on the challenger circuit, put up a good fight against Nadal, forcing the number one seed into uncharacteristic unforced errors. It wasn't until the ninth game that the Brazilian was finally broken on serve, however he immediately broke back to 5-5 before Nadal went on to win the next two games and the set 7-5.

To everyone's surprise Daniel opened up a 3-1 lead in the second set, Nadal was quick to recover and from then on took advantage of his opponent's inexperience at this level to record a 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 win.

Tuesday brought no less than six five set matches, the highlight being Stanislas Wawrinka's recovery from 1-4 deficit in the fourth set to defeat Nicolas Devilder of France 6-3, 5-7, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in just under four hours.

Today's Selections:

Julien Benneteau (FRA) v Jo Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)
If these two French players were playing against one another on any surface other than clay I would have to side with the charismatic Tsonga. The bigger and more powerful Frenchman has all the attributes to become a world class player having already reached the finals of the Australian Open. With six wins and just four losses against top ten world ranked players including victories over Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal to his name, Tsonga has every right to be regarded as a future Grand Slam winner.
This match-up however has all the makings of a major upset, not only does Julien Benneteau lead their head-to-head series 3-1, he also has the better pedigree on the clay. It was only last week that Benneteau, the older of the two, won six consecutive matches to reach the final of the Austrian Open. He has a decent record at the French Open wining seven of his last ten matches including defeats of Robin Soderling, Marcos Baghdatis, Radek Stepanek, Janko Tipsarevic and David Ferrer in 2004 when the Spaniard was fancied to go well.
On the other hand Tsonga has a poor record on clay, he finds it hard to adjust to the slower surface often being frustrated by his opponent's knack of getting back what would be winners on his favoured, faster court surfaces. With injury doubts playing on Tsonga's mind and the head-to-heads in favour of Benneteau there is definitely value in backing the elder statesman.
Selection: Back Julien Benneteau @ [3.15] to win match

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