French Open women's final: betting preview, tip and TV details

Women's final
ITV4 & Eurosport 1, 2pm

A new champion will be crowned when first-time major finalists Ashleigh Barty meets Marketa Vondrousova in the French Open title match and while the Austra­lian should win the day, she may have to do it the hard way.

Barty and Vondrousova possess decent temperaments and the Czech teenager will probably find Barty an even tougher cookie than Johanna Konta, who she defeated 7-5 7-6 in the semi-finals but Vondrousova is definitely good enough to pose problems for the trophy favourite.

Improving Barty triumphed in the second leg of the US hard-court double in Miami in March and is already one of the most complete performers on the WTA Tour.

The fact that the Roland Garros eighth seed dug deep and found a way to fight back to deny one of the WTA Tour’s top young­sters in 17-year-old Amanda Anisimova in the last four should provide her with a real boost going into the final.

The form of that outing alone could well be enough to see the Queenslander over the line, but even though Vondrousova ought to make a match of it on the penultimate day of action in Paris, punters face a difficult task trying to evaluate Barty’s level of supremacy.

Just because the Aussie has pretty much got the lot as a player, that doesn’t mean an upset victory for Vondrousova should be ruled out of the equation.

The unseeded 19-year-old, the first teenager to reach a major final for ten years, has battled away superbly in the last couple of weeks and it could be a telling statistic that Vondrousova has saved 29 of 43 service break points in the last fortnight.

Barty has won their two previous meetings with victories on grass in 2017 and on a hard court last year. But even though they were straight-sets triumphs, both were close enough to suggest that Vondrousova, with all her wile and guile, could play her part in future head-to-head battles.

And a clash on clay could be just when the Czech needs in her bid to reduce her arrears.

The one option punters probably can rule out is Vondrou­sova, whose game is more about deft touches than hard hitting, sweeping aside Barty with little fuss and so the play looks to be to back a close encounter.

Vondrousova, who has won more matches than any player on the WTA Tour since the Australian Open and has yet to drop a set in the competition, came in for decent market support after beating Konta to become the first Czech to win the French Open women’s singles since Hana Mandlikova went all the way as a 19-year-old in 1981.

Barty, who is more than three years older than her opponent, is unlikely to smash Vondrousova the way she did Jessica Pegula and Andrea Petkovic in week one of the season’s second major and a good way of punting the final could be to go over the total games at 19.5, which looks a shade of value at 4-6.

Recommendation
Over 19.5 games
1pt 4-6 Betway

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