Men's French Open Day Five Tips: Jarry to continue winning streak

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Nicolas Jarry is on a great run currently...

Second round action at the French Open continues on Thursday with a further 16 matches on the men's singles schedule. Dan Weston returns to preview the day ahead...

  • Alcaraz producing mixed bag against Daniel

  • Jarry looking like value over Paul

  • De Minaur could be vulnerable against Etcheverry


Main contenders through to round three

In the first group of second round matches, the main contenders for the title made it through to round three without an abundance of drama, although Carlos Alcaraz dropped a set against Taro Daniel.

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev made it through as well, while at the time of writing, Novak Djokovic looks like easing his way to round three too. British interest continues via Cam Norrie, who ended Lucas Pouille's journey in straightforward fashion.

We will see another 16 players progress to round three on Thursday with the likes of Holger Rune, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev expected to get through by the market. Bigger challenges probably do await all as they move towards week two.

Tommy Paul v Nicols Jarry

In more competitive matches, Nicolas Jarry faces Tommy Paul and brings a five-match winning streak into the clash after winning Geneva last week.

Jarry beat good opposition, including top seed Ruud, to win that title, and clearly is playing very well. However, it's always debatable as to whether a title the week before a Grand Slam is positive given the physical exertions, although Jarry eased to an opening round win here.

Quite simply, Jarry has far better clay data than Paul this year, particularly on serve, and over a longer period of time, the advantage still exists.

Given that Jarry had a walkover as well in Geneva, he only played four matches and only one three-setter, so I'm willing to put those physical doubts aside and consider him at the current 1.804/5.

Back Jarry to win

1.77

Asian Karastev v Frances Tiafoe

Moving on, the markets are finding it difficult to split Aslan Karatsev and Frances Tiafoe, with Karatsev continuing his good form from Madrid in qualifying here with minimal fuss, not dropping a set.

In Madrid, he reached the semi-final as a qualifier, winning five underdog matches in the process, although Tiafoe has won a clay title this year in Houston.

On the surface this year, both have very similar serve data but Tiafoe has the edge on return, and as the much higher ranked player, probably should be just about favourite here.

I'm not sure there's enough value to get involved but this should be a pretty competitive clash.

Tomas Martin Etcheverry v Alex De Minaur

Finally, there's a classic clash of contrasting playing styles as Tomas Etcheverry faces Alex De Minaur.

The higher ranked player, De Minaur, has the slight market edge at 1.9420/21, but Etcheverry played well in reaching the Bordeaux Challenger final several weeks ago, and gave Novak Djokovic a decent match in Rome.

De Minaur has had struggles on clay this year and in his career in general, and clay is clearly the surface which is something of a leveller between the duo.

I always enjoy these clay-court specialist versus bigger-name player clashes, and this promises to be just that.

Recommended bets

Back Nicolas Jarry at 1.804/5

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