French Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 06 June 2008 /

Victory for Monfils would cap a wonderful fortnight for the French but Federer is still "formidable!" says Sean Calvert

It's been a wonderful fortnight for the French, with five home favourites making the last 16, but Gael Monfils would surely not have been on many people's shortlists as a potential Roland Garros champion.

The best tournament in years for the French has been supplemented with their first semi-finalist since Sebastien Grosjean dumped Andre Agassi out with or without the help of a certain American President in 2001.

Monfils needed no such assistance to put paid to a clearly rattled David Ferrer on Wednesday evening and now has the chance to become the first Frenchman since Henri Leconte in 1988 to reach the final.

Roland Garros has a habit of turning out unlikely finalists - Magnus Norman and Martin Verkerk anybody? And Monfils, who has had over £1000 matched on him at [1000.0] would be another addition to that unlikely club should he make it.

Blessed with an inordinate amount of natural talent that he has (infuriatingly for many punters, myself included) found impossible to harness consistently since bursting onto the scene in 2005, Monfils has struggled with a knee injury this season.

The injury won't come as a surprise to anyone who has witnessed Monfils' unorthodox style and he has been limited him to just a challenger win, in Marrakech, this year.

Standing in the way of a home success is the significant barrier of world number one, Roger Federer, who, in beating Fernando Gonzalez in the quarters, qualified for a remarkable 16th consecutive Grand Slam semi-final.

The Swiss maestro is an unbackable [1.11] to record his fourth win out of four over the French world number 59, having most recently defeated him in staright sets in the round of 16 of the Monte Carlo Masters in April and Monfils should start at around [9.2] to cause a huge upset.
The Paris-born 21-year-old frustrated Ferrer and to a certain extent Ljubicic before him by taking a lot of pace out of his shots and waiting for his opponents to miss, which they both obligingly did. But it's hard to see Federer falling for such tactics and a straight sets win for Fed looks the call at around [1.7].

It's hard to see how Monfils can hurt Federer, but we have seen the world number one lose opening sets against Albert Montanes and Fernando Gonzalez in this year's tournament, so perhaps an outside punt could be Monfils to follow suit at [6.0].
Federer should come through without too many problems though and set up yet another final with defending champ Rafael Nadal.

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