French Open Betting / Gary Boswell / 20 May 2008 /

What you may not know about our non-league football man Gary Boswell is that he is also an avid spectator of women's tennis. "The Boz" takes a look at the history books to see what is required to win the French Open.

In working out what it takes to win the French Open, it is worth going back 32 years to those heady days when a British tennis player was actually good enough to win a grand slam. The modest and unassuming Sue Barker, whom it is now hard to believe ever had an ounce of that arrogance required to become a World Champion in sport, said that she came off Court Centrale that fateful day sure that she was about to conquer the tennis world.

The following year she was a more mature and far superior player but only managed the semi in Australia and also at the memorable Silver Jubilee Wimbledon. Why, then, was she so sure she would win more Grand Slams? That victory gave her a false dawn and hindsight has explained it to her and can help us work out who will win this year.

"I won at Roland Garros in 1976 because the court was made of clay. The slow surface suited my game. Only Chris Evert played better clay court tennis than me at that time and she was absent in '76. When I tried to win Wimbledon the following year, as a better player, I was defeated by the fact that Centre Court is not made of clay. That day, my feet were!"

Since when did Groucho Marx write Sue Barker's scripts?

It may seem dubious that the answer is this simple but the stats over the years have borne it out. To win at Roland Garros, you gotta have a clay court game. That simple fact enables you to sort the field into Backs and Lays. There is no event in the sporting calendar where the portfolio approach to betting outright markets is clearer. Except perhaps Wimbledon where the good players who don't win at Roland Garros tend to prevail.

Doubt that betting could ever be that simple? Consider these facts:- great tennis players who have not had the game to dominate at Roland Garros include:

1. Martina Navratilova who won there just twice during her absolute peak period of 1982-84. She was a losing finalist four times - just six final appearances in a fifteen year period where she was the totally dominant world No.1 player of the women's game.

2. Venus Williams has never won the French Open. Her best was a 2002 final when she lost to Serena for whom that is also a sole final appearance.

3. Roger Federer. Ok, so he's a man but can you imagine a player of his supreme world dominance failing to win a tennis tournament for any other reason.

On the subject of men, there's evidence there too. Take Mr Federer's nemesis, Rafael Nadal. He has followed in the footsteps of Ivan Lendl in being a champion of just one surface. In the women's game, the recently retired Justine Henin was also a clay court world No.1 who simply could not win on grass.

Of course there has been the occasional exception to prove the rule. Her name was Steffi Graf who won the French Open six times. That, for, shows where she fits in the list of all-time supremos of the game. Chris Evert was also a bit of an exception. She favoured clay and won the French seven times but could prevail on grass too until Martina came along.

There's no doubt that winning at Roland Garros takes a clay court game but Sue Barker points us to another vital ingredient, "The crowds at Court Centrale are banked steeply - unlike at Wimbledon where they tend to sweep all around you like a fluid wave. Roland Garros is a far more gladiatorial amphitheatre with that tendency to bay for the blood of anyone not endowed with Gallic genes. Fortunately, that intimidating atmosphere never really unbalanced me the way it does some. But maybe I got lucky in '76 in that I faced no French opponents on my way to the title."

Whilst the weight of expectation on Henman Hill may ultimately have been more hindrance than help to tiny Tim, the way the home crowd treats the opponents of the local talent can be of nothing but assistance to the home player at Roland Garros. Alice Cornet has the potential to become the new darling of the locals and her opponents are sure to start each match at a disadvantage this year.

So, being French and being a naturally clay court oriented player are the basic ingredients - which casts doubt on several of the favourites in the outrights this year. Injured Sharapova is surely not a naturally inclined clay-courter. There must be doubts about Serena too; speed courts suit her power better. She was at an absolute peak to win in 2002 and you have to wonder whether she'd be able to repeat that. Venus no chance. Far too grass-oriented. Likewise Kuznetsova. Maybe Mauresmo too although she does have the advantage of being La Bleu!

Jelena Jankovic has the clay court game so she'll do for me among the favourites. I'm prepared to ignore her country of birth!

Can she recover mentally, though, from the humiliation of losing a set to love? I mention this because it is a feature of French Open Women's winners. In 1998, Monica Seles - who had looked set to become the Roland Garros queen of all time after her three back to back wins from 90-92 (before the well documented knife attack) was completing her comeback with an imperious 6-0 second set against that other clay court specialist of the time, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, only for Arantxa to show the greatest of championship mentalities to battle back from the second set whitewash to win the title in the third. It happened in 1976 too. Sue Barker glosses over the fact that she lost the second set 6-0 to Tomanova before rediscovering her 'clay feet' for the final set.

It takes some bottle does that. Put a line not only through those whose best game is on grass. To win at the Garros, you also have to be what Sue Barker's scriptwriter called " A woman with balls!"

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