French Open Women's Quarter-Final Tips: Pegula next in line to face Swiatek

Yesterday - Trevisan continues run with underdog winner

Martina Trevisan continued her incredible run at Roland Garros with an underdog win over Leylah Fernandez, again also continuing her stunning return data as well. Trevisan won 49% of return points in the match and if she can continue that against Cori Gauff in the semi-final (Gauff beat Sloane Stephens yesterday in the other quarter-final) then she will definitely have a chance of making a Grand Slam final.

Heavy favourite - Swiatek's next challenge is Pegula

Either way, we will see a new Grand Slam finalist from the bottom half of the draw, and seemingly an inevitable meeting with Iga Swiatek in the final. The Pole surprisingly dropped a set against Qinwen Zhang in the fourth round, but looks pretty much unbeatable currently - Jessica Pegula is the next player who has the unenviable task of looking to try and beat Swiatek.

This season, Pegula has decent clay data for sure, running at 106% combined service/return points won on the surface, and that's around top 10 level - showing her clear improvement on clay in 2022. However, Pegula's numbers are still nothing compared to Swiatek, who is running in excess of at a quite incredible 115%.

When you consider that 110%+ is elite level, Swiatek's level on has been stratospheric and hasn't been seen since peak Serena Williams.

Given the above, Swiatek is unsurprisingly a very heavy favourite to make the semi-finals, with the market pricing her up at 1.132/15 at the time of writing, and unfortunately for Pegula's supporters, that looks difficult to justify. A Swiatek loss would be a major shock today.

More competitive match anticipated between Kudermetova and Kasatkina

In theory at least, the other semi-final between Veronika Kudermetova and Darya Kasatkina should be more competitive. Kasatkina has now trades as the 1.558/15 favourite, and stats-wise, that market support looks very much justified. Rather like Trevisan, Kasatkina's return data has been incredible on clay in the last year, breaking opposition players serves just over 50% of the time.

Of the duo, Kudermetova has a stronger serve slightly, but that doesn't compare to the discrepancy in the two players ability on return, and the market has been very smart here - the two players start the match accurately priced today.