French Open Betting / Editor / 01 June 2007 /

The action at the French Open on Friday is going to have to go some to match Thursday's thrilling duel between Lleyton Hewitt and Gaston Gaudio, with the Aussie coming back from two sets down to make the last 32.

But one of the outstanding matches of the sixth day at Roland Garros sees 2002 runner-up and 2003 champion Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain up against 13th seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia.

This promises to be a cracker with the prize for the winner a likely last 16 showdown with world number one and top seed Roger Federer, assuming he beats Italy's Polito Starace.

Ferrero has reached the last 32 with a four-set win over American Amer Delic and a 6-4 7-5 6-3 defeat of Austria's Stefan Koubek.
Youzhny had an easy start when Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic was forced to retire with a back problem, in the opening game of their first-round clash. Then he stormed past Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti 6-3 6-0 6-4 to set up the Court 2 clash with Ferrero.

The two six-footers have met just once despite being on the circuit for over eight years. Ferrero, ranked five places below Youhny at number 20 in the world, won in Sydney in 2003 in two sets.

He has the big-time experience having won 11 titles to Youzhny's three and has been a quarter-finalist in the Australian Open and a runner-up in the US Open. A fourth-round at Wimbledon in 2003 and 2005 is his best effort on grass.

But clay is his favourite surface and he had two consecutive semi-final appearances at Roland Garros in the two years before his final appearances. Oddly, though, since 2003 he has not been beyond the third round.

He has only reached one final this year - losing to Guillermo Canas in the Costa Do Sauipe - but was a semi-finalist in Acapulco in February. He then had a good run to the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters at the start of the clay court season, before losing to Federer - as he did in the last 16 in Hamburg in his last tournament before Paris.

Youzhny's best effort of the year was victory in Rotterdam, beating Ivan Ljubicic in the final, and finishing runner-up to Federer in Dubai.

During the clay-court run-up to Paris the Russian reached the Munich final before losing to Philipp Kohlschreiber and was checked in Rome at the last 16 stage by Rafael Nadal. He will have been disappointed to go out in the first round to Florian Mayer in the Hamburg Masters in his last event before arriving at Roland Garros.

Ferrrero is trading at 2 on Betfair to go through to the next round while Youzhny, who has never been beyond the third round in six previous visits to Paris, is 1.97 to progress.

On Court Philipppe Chatrier, the match to rouse the Roland Garros fans will be home favourite Gael Monfils against Argentina's 15th seed David Nalbandian.

These two have surprisingly never met on the ATP Tour, but the 20-year-old Parisian may be capable of surprising Nalbandian, especially with a partisan crowd roaring him on.

Monfils is trading at 2.34 to upset the 2006 and 2004 semi-finalist and match his fourth-round best of last year. But Nalbandian, a patient, tricky player, looks a steadier bet at 1.73.

The pick of the women's matches sees fourth seed Jelena Jankovic take on 26th seed and 2003 runner-up Venus Williams on Chatrier.

They stand 2-2 in head to heads over the last two years. In their last clash in Charleston, the Serbian took the match on a final set tie-break and she also beat Williams at Wimbledon last year in the third round, to end the American's reign as champion.
Jankovic is on offer at 1.45 on Betfair to make the fourth round for the first time, with Williams trading at 3.15.

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