French Open - Goerges v Williams

Ok, so I promised myself something at the start of this event. Don't risk the uncertainty of a returning Serena Williams in trying to apply stats to the outcome of her matches. She's had a baby for god sake. That's big. If her baby is anything like my two, she wont have slept since September.

Anyway, promises are made to be broken, and I now feel we have enough data to take a speculative, if small, punt on Williams continuing her excellent run so far.

She's beaten Ashleigh Barty and Krystina Pliskova, and goes into battle with Julia Goerges on Saturday. Now we do have some data about the players she has beaten so far, and that's pertinent, as Barty, Pliskova and Goerges are all very similar. Here are their stats against Top 100 players on clay over the past two seasons.

Essentially, these three could barely be closer on all the key metrics we like to look at.

Serena was a fair winner against Pliskova, albeit by a reasonably close margin, but it was the key points where she seemed better mentally prepared. Against Barty she really came into the match well after a poor first set, and then woeful opening to the second.

With Goerges arguably the weakest of the three, and crucially lower on the receiving points metric, I'm leaning towards Serena being a spot of value at 4/5 and reckon the market might be a touch more cautious about the impact of having an extra member of the family than it should be. Just to be clear, I'm not saying she's winning the whole event, but factor in the last time the pair met on clay (6-1 6-1 to Williams) and I think we have just about enough for a bet here.

2pts Williams to beat Goerges at 4/5 (Spreadex)