French Open Day Four Women's Tips: Kasatkina a conservative tip over Bencic

Kvitova joins Osaka in withdrawing from the tournament

Usually there would be 16 second-round matches today but following Naomi Osaka's withdrawal, she was also joined by Petra Kvitova who gave Elena Vesnina a walkover into round three leaving us with 14 matches on today's schedule.

Collins with potential fitness issues but could be value

As has been the case on the WTA side of things, the schedule looks a bit trappy with several spots looking like value but I'm not entirely convinced about them. Danielle Collins, based on numbers, looks a decent shout at 2.226/5 against the qualifier, Anhelina Kalinina who got the better of Angelique Kerber in round one.

Collins, however, suffered a back problem in Australia at the end of February, and has only played in Miami at the end of March since, until her opening round win over Xiyu Wang. That was a tough three-setter but Collins didn't take many of her chances in that and could have done the job slightly easier. I think a combination of Collins' potential fitness issues and Kalinina beating Kerber in round one has created the market dynamic here.

Bencic slightly over valued by the market against Kasatkina

I think it's fair to suggest that Belinda Bencic has underwhelmed on clay this season so far, having lost to Paula Badosa twice, plus Ekaterina Alexandrova and Kristina Mladenovic, and given this, her dominant win over Nadia Podoroska was something of a surprise in round one. Today, Bencic faces Daria Kasatkina and the Russian is a decent clay-courter, albeit one who has probably also slightly underwhelmed on clay and would have had greater expectations after winning in St Petersburg on Indoor Hard in March.

Based on clay levels over the last couple of years, I think Kasatkina represents some value at [2.22] but it's definitely a cautious recommendation.

Azarenka versus Tauson the match of the day

In other matches, Polona Hercog is a very capable player on the surface and could easily give Caroline Garcia a test at 2.767/4 - Garcia is another player whose numbers are perhaps slightly worse than her reptuation - while the match of the day in my view is Victoria Azarenka against Clara Tauson.

Azarenka may not be fully fit for this one and struggled past another fitness doubt Svetlana Kuznetsova in round one while Tauson is one of the highest potential players on tour currently, with massive future upside in my view. We obviously have Tauson as an outright third quarter winner in advance of the tournament, and should she beat Azarenka this afternoon, that price will be dramatically cut.

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