Women's French Open Day Five Tips: Swiatek expected to ease into round three

• Swiatek a huge favourite over Liu

• Gauff and Andreeva one match away from potential clash

• Keep an eye on the Paolini price

Iga Świątek v Claire Lu

Anything other than a straight-set win for Iga Swiatek over Claire Liu on Thursday would be a major surprise, and the market agrees, pricing up the Pole as a virtual bye to make round three.

Ons Jabeur, against Oceane Dodin, is very slightly bigger priced, while Cori Gauff and Elena Rybakina round off the heavy favourites on day five.

It will be really interesting to see how Rybakina faces against the very talented Linda Noskova, while a win for Gauff could set up a cracking clash against the new sensation on tour, Mirra Andreeva, who faces wild card Diane Parry.

Karolina Schmiedlova v Aliona Bolsova

With a lot of favourites priced quite short for this batch of matches, a glance at some of the more even-looking clashes looks worthwhile.

After shocking Veronica Kudermetova in round one, Anna Schmiedlova faces Aliona Bolsova, who picked up a lucky loser spot after defeat in qualifiers.

Since a title in the Koper ITF event, Bolsova has struggled for wins, but has the chance for a round three position here if she can repeat her win over Schmiedlova from February (played on hard court).

That day, Bolsova was priced in excess of 3.002/1 but is shorter-priced at 2.1211/10 here, which looks about right given their clay data over the last year or so. Schmeidlova has a slight edge on both service and return points won, so the market movement looks pretty logical.

Sara Sorribes Tormo v Petra Martic

Another player who has done well of late in an ITF event is Sara Sorribes Tormo, who reached the final in Madrid ITF several weeks ago.

This came as a little bit of a surprise, given recent injury issues, but she was a favourite in all matches and only faces one top 130 player in the event.

This kind of level is rather lower than Sorribes Tormo will face here against Petra Martic, who did well to get past Shelby Rogers in round one, and reached the quarter-finals of the Madrid Masters recently, beating Barbora Krejcijkova in the process.

The match-up looks like the classic decent serve (Martic) versus the strong return game (Sorribes Tormo), and it will be fascinating to see which prevails. My suspicion is that Martic at 1.9110/11 will prove to be too strong in that contrasting match-up.

Jasmine Paolini v Olga Danilovic

Finally, the other clash which look competitive is Jasmine Paolini versus qualifier Olga Danilović, with Paolini in great form of late having won the Florence Challenger and is now six unbeaten.

However, Danilovic is also on a winning streak herself, now having won nine matches in straight sets in a row, across the Madrid ITF event (beat Sorribes Tormo in the final) and qualifying to be here.

There really isn't much to choose between the duo based on data, with Paolini having a very slight edge overall. Given that she's the 2.021/1 underdog for the win here, if the price moves to 2.1011/10 or greater, this would look to be the best spot of the day.