French Open - Halep v Kerber

Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber will fight it out for a place in the semi-finals on Wednesday, but it's a match which could be over pretty quickly in my eyes.

Halep - ranked 1st in the world - has much stronger underlaying numbers and it would be a massive surpise to see Kerber raise her game to the standards required again in this one.

Let's start with a look at their service rates against Top 20 players over the past two seasons on Clay. Halep has won 59.7% of points on her own serve, compared to just 55.1% that Kerber has achieved.

It's at the other end where Halep really wins her matches though - winning an incredible 46.4% of receiving points - the best on tour in this regard. Compare that to Kerber's far lower 37.9% and you see where this match is going to be won.

That gives them combined rates of 106.1% v 93.04% - enough to warrant Halep being much shorter in the betting that she is. Having beaten Elise Mertens - a very capable player herself - 6-2 6-1 in the fourth round, we're happy that she should be fit and ready for another thrashing, and the 6/5 on offer for a 2-0 win look appealing enough in this one.

2pts Halep to beat Kerber 2-0 at 6/5

#Tennis