By Jake Davies
- Coco Gauff [6] vs Mirra Andreeva
- Taylor Fritz [9] vs Francisco Cerundolo [23]
- Elena Rybakina [4] vs Sara Sorribes Tormo
PARIS, FRANCE – A Roland Garros finalist and a reigning Slam champion are amongst our must-see matches for the day.
Coco Gauff [6] vs Mirra Andreeva H2H and Match Fundamentals
Coco Gauff [6] vs Mirra Andreeva | H2H: First time meeting |
Roland Garros 2023 | Paris, France |
Clay (O) | Prize Money: €142,000 |
Fourth on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, not before 4pm (3pm BST) | Discovery+ Add-on via Amazon Prime – Sign up for 30 day free trial of Prime Video and a 7 day free trial of Discovery+ Player |
Coco Gauff needed to come from a set down in her first round match against Rebeka Masarova, but improved her level in her following match against Julia Grabher of Austria. Gauff is defending the French Open final points from last year, and is one of the few players on tour that has that experience in the bank of knowing how to go deep at this particular tournament.
Standing in her way from another showing in the second week of a major is another up-and-coming bright star named Mirra Andreeva. In many ways Andreeva is experiencing a similar trajectory and career path as Gauff did, with the Russian making a name for herself as a teenager and already making big steps at the highest level in the game. Andreeva not only plays with such abandon but also is quite composed and measured for someone with very little experience to call upon on tour.
Andreeva is very much acclimatised to the conditions having made her way through the qualifying rounds, which makes her even more of a dangerous threat as a result. But Gauff’s big match experience might be quite telling here and if she has the type of day where her weaker forehand is functioning quite well and not leaking errors out of poor technique, then there is no reason why she cannot progress here.
Prediction: Gauff in three sets.
Taylor Fritz [9] vs Francisco Cerundolo [23] H2H and Match Fundamentals
Taylor Fritz has done an excellent job in the last couple of seasons and becoming one of the more consistent players on the tour. Now the American is truly seen as one of the few players whose game comfortably translates to all surfaces and he is no longer just a danger on a medium paced hard court in addition. The problem for Fritz has really been backing up that memorable Wimbledon quarter-final run from last year and generally transferring exceptional results at tour-level into peaking at the four major tournaments. The American was a losing finalist at the Roland Garros juniors event in 2015, so even then there were signs that maybe he could be a good prospect even on the red clay.
His opponent in the third round will be Francisco Cerundolo. Cerundolo’s back story is obviously very different to the American as he is renowned for being a clay court specialist and that is where all of his big results have taken place on thus far. The Argentine has made three tour-level finals and has one title to his name on the red clay of Bastad last year.
Fritz has definitely improved his game-style to be considered more of the full package these days, with the backhand down the line more of a weapon, the defensive movement more efficient on all surfaces, and perhaps the biggest change is the eagerness to finish points off at the net. Cerundolo is more one-dimensional in the sense that his game revolves around setting up and having time to unleash on his forehand groundstroke, and if he is to pull off this victory it will be down to that single shot without question.
Prediction: Fritz in five sets.
Elena Rybakina [4] vs Sara Sorribes Tormo H2H and Match Fundamentals
Elena Rybakina has notably worked her way through the draw without much fuss thus far. The Kazakh beat two Czech youngsters to get into the third round, and continues to look like one of the biggest contenders for the title alongside Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka to name a few.
Sara Sorribes Tormo won’t make things easy for her in the third round, though. The Spaniard has struggled a lot with injuries throughout the 2023 season and that has disrupted a lot of the big progress she made in the previous season, but she is renowned for how much of a nuisance she can be in slower conditions. Sorribes Tormo’s biggest strengths is her ability in retrieval positions, how she can lengthen and extend the course of a point against the larger hitters, but she is also a fantastic disruptor with a backhand slice that cuts through the court at a challenging height. That particular shot is something that could be very effective against Rybakina.
Rybakina’s game is in a good-enough place to surpass anything that Sorribes Tormo throws at her on this particular occasion. It goes without saying that the speed of the court, the type of surface and the breezy conditions all work in the favour of Sorribes Tormo. But if there is one thing Rybakina has shown this season is that she adjusts to unfavourable situations much better than before and is executing excellently off the ground in 2023.
Prediction: Rybakina in three sets.
How to Watch/Follow Roland Garros 2023
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