- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Can the home crowd spur Richard Gasquet on to an upset victory over Novak Djokovic? Find out as The Roar provide live scores of the match from around 1am AEST.
Despite making a semi-final at Wimbledon in 2007, and at the US Open in 2013, Gasquet has never made a quarter final at his home Grand Slam.
His best achievement has been the fourth round in 2011, 2012, 2013, and this year after a four set win over Kevin Anderson in the third round on Saturday.
Gasquet, who is the world number 21, has had a relatively smooth passage to the fourth round. His only challenge came in the 2nd round with a five set battle over Carlos Berlocq.
Tonight though, he faces the toughest challenge on the Tour. Novak Djokovic has been in blistering form so far in the tournament.
On Saturday, as well, he defeated Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in straight sets. The Aussie played well but was beaten by a player who didn’t give him an inch throughout the match.
Djokovic lost just 15 points on serve, conceded no break point chances, and only hit 12 unforced errors. Almost no one would beat him with those statistics in a match.
That is the challenge Gasquet faces tonight and in past results he has struggled against the world number 1.
The match tonight is the 13th between them with Djokovic winning 11 out of the 12 meetings since 2005.
In those 12 matches, Gasquet has only won 5 sets of tennis, including the two in his only victory against the Serbian in 2007 at the ATP world tour finals in Shanghai.
He has struggled against Djokovic and in 2011 he lost his only meeting against him at the French Open in the round of 16.
The key for Gasquet, if he is to cause the boilover, is his backhand and hitting as many winners as he can from it.
Reducing unforced errors will also be critical. He has averaged 33 in each match as he has tried to hit plenty of winners. That needs to be around 25 for the match if he wants to win.
It’s going to be tough for Gasquet to win. Djokovic is great on both the backhand, and forehand, and can hit winners at will.
His serve is also extremely reliable at the tournament so far. We have not seen any problems with it in his three matches.
The Frenchman may win a set, after being buoyed on by the home crowd, but he won’t win tonight. Djokovic should be too strong and a likely quarter final with Rafael Nadal awaits.
PREDICTION – Djokovic 3-0
Whether it’s aces or races, try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp for great odds and a great punting experience. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.