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In a first round match that appears hard to split on the surface in the wide open French Open women’s draw, Australian Ashleigh Barty will take on 12th seed Madison Keys. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from around 9pm (AEST).
Normally, Keys would go into this match as favourite, but playing on clay while in form and coming up against the American that doesn’t suggest anything special, it evens things right up.
Keys has struggled at times on clay throughout her career, and this season has been no different with three first round losses in Charleston, Madrid and Rome against Shelby Rogers, Misaki Doi and Daria Gavrilova respectively – arguably, all players she should be beating.
While Keys finished the 2016 Rio Olympics in fourth place, nothing good has come since as she missed the Australian Open through injury and even since coming back she has struggled on her more preferred hard court, which is worrying.
In a women’s draw where upsets are normal at grand slams in the early round, Barty herself pulled off a third round run in the Australian Open during her first major tournament back in the sport since a foray into cricket.
She has publicly said she is now enjoying her tennis again and it shows in her performance as she took out a tournament in Kuala Lumper, has shown strong form under pressure in the Fed Cup and just last week made the quarter-finals in Strasbourg before falling in a third set tie-breaker to fellow Aussie Daria Gavrilova.
Her biggest problem here will be dealing with the serve of Keys, which has been known to cause headaches for opponents when it’s on. That in itself has become a weakness for the 12th seed in recent times though, with her loss to Gavrilova seeing just 53 per cent of first serves land in.
If she does that against Barty, who tends to win a lot of points on second serves, it’s going to bite hard and the Australian will reap the rewards.
The pair have faced off once previously, in the 2011 juniors at Wimbledon. On that occasion, Barty won in three sets, but it’s hard to justify why that will have any effect on this match six years later.
Prediction
It’s upset time. Barty has been in solid form and the way she is able to fight and grind out long points will see her through to the second round against the 12th seed.
Barty in three tough sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores and coverage of this first round match from around 9pm (AEST) or at the completion of Philipp Kohlschreiber versus Nick Kyrgios and don’t forget to get involved by dropping a comment below.