Our tennis expert Scott Ferguson has three bets picked out for Saturday's action at the French Open.
Recommended bets
1pt Hsieh/Rungkat to beat Barrere/Halys at 4/5
1pt Anna Blinkova to win a set (vs Keys) at 23/20
1pt Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova at 6/5
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- By Scott Ferguson
Hsieh/Rungkat v Barrere/Halys
Stepping onto the doubles court for the first bet for Saturday where I'd be surprised if anyone other than the tennis anorak is aware of these pairings.
Cheng-Peng Hsieh and Christopher Rungkat are an experienced combination often playing at Challenger level, where in doubles, you basically have to win events regularly in order to pay your way.
This season they have racked up 29 wins out of 38 matches, with four winners' trophies in the bag. They are just on the cusp of regularly gaining entry into ATP level events and this is their first Grand Slam tournament.
Some of their scalps this year have been seasoned doubles specialists, including Leander Paes, the Ratiwatana brothers, Bopanna & Shaman, Molchanov & Zeleny, Erlich & Sela - it's a solid winning record they possess, despite being quite low in profile. In R1, they defeated the 16th seeds in straight sets.
At the other side of the net is the occasional pairing of Gregoire Barrere and Quentin Halys.
Home players are strongly encouraged to pair up in the Grand Slams, it's an easy cheque and only occasionally do any of these slap-up combinations work.
After an awful 3-10 record in recent years when they've linked up, they did manage a title at the Bordeaux Challenger earlier this month.
Lightning can strike twice, but under pressure from a seasoned combination, I doubt the home support will be enough to gain them a win here.
1pt Hsieh/Rungkat to beat Barrere/Halys at 4/5
Madison Keys v Anna Blinkova
Last year's semi-finalist Madison Keys has yet to hit her straps on clay this month. After winning on American green clay in Charleston, she was 2-2 in Europe before yesterday's winning conclusion to her match against Priscilla Hon, a match which Keys unusually didn't try to dominate.
Her natural game is power and if she's not cracking winners, her rhythm is affected and matches become a grind.
Anna Blinkova is on a run of five straight wins here and nine in her last ten matches, a run which will see her re-enter the top 100.
Her victories over Margarita Gasparyan and Caroline Garcia have been gritty battles, not pretty at times, but she has fallen over the line.
It's a bigger challenge ahead of her here but I think she will at least bother Keys for a while unless the American suddenly gets her groove back.
1pt Anna Blinkova to win a set (vs Keys) at 23/20
Ekaterina Alexandrova v Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov
The blonde Russian, Ekaterina Alexandrova, has turned around a poor clay season (1-6 pre-tournament) with two shaky wins over Mihaela Buzarnescu and Samantha Stosur to reach the third round, her best performance in a major tournament to date.
A typical Russian, with most of her titles won on indoor hardcourts, she's likely to face a tougher battle against a player she'll have never seen before.
Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov is half-Spanish, half-Moldovan, and has only taken her tennis seriously for the past year and half. After a handy junior career, she almost gave the sport away before going to college in America for a year.
That sparked her desire to go professional and she has progressed steadily through the lower ranking events before making her big breakthrough this week, winning five matches already, including qualifying.
She reminds me a bit of Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, a compact player running her opponents from side-to-side before landing the killer punch.
I think the fairy tale run has a little further to go, Bolsova has the patience and variation to surprise her Russian opponent.
1pt Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova at 6/5
