- Trading Grass Court Tennis - May 29, 2018
- Rome Challenger & Madrid WTA Match Previews - May 9, 2018
- Munich & Istanbul ATP Tour Match Previews - May 5, 2018
Morning all, well i’m delighted to say t’s finally here…… the second Grand Slam of the year. As per tradition, the Roland Garros, French Open starts on a Sunday and as you can probably tell, i’m very excited about it.
This 2 week-long prestigious event is the only Grand Slam played on clay and was founded as far back as 1891. In more recent years this event has been dominated by a certain Rafa Nadal, and the Spaniard is the bookies favourite to claim his 10th title here this year. Reigning champion Novak Djokovic started to look more like his old self in Rome, despite losing in the final to Alexander Zverev. With the Serb, now under the watchful eye of Andre Agassi, he will be hoping for another deep run in this years tournament. For those blissfully unaware, the men’s format in Grand Slams differ to that of the ATP Masters and Challenger events; matches are played over the best of five sets, rather than the best of three. This traditionally means that there are a few less upsets (top players class usually prevails over the longer format) and a number of mid-match retirements, due to injury and fatigue. Plenty to look out for, plenty to enjoy and i thought it would be damn right disrespectful to not review a match that involved a French player today, so…….. i’ve decided to pick the bones out of the match up between the Italian world number 161, Marco Trungelliti and the French world number 126, Quentin Halys.
This is the first time these two have met, and Halys will clearly have the support of the partisan home crowd behind him. Trungelliti had to get through qualifying to get here, beating Ruben Bemelmans, Tobias Kamke and Matteo Donati, in what was on paper at least, a tricky run. Halys warmed up by playing in Lyon last week, losing in the First Round to Martin Del Potro 5-7 4-6, in a close encounter.
Onto what that matters today then, and let’s begin as always with the serving stats of both players; Trungelliti recent clay court mean looks like this; service points won 58% and service hold 70%, these are both under the recent clay court Tour mean of 61% and 74% respectively. Trungelliti will be vulnerable on serve today, and keeping the ball away from the dangerous Halys forehand will be key for him. Halys on the other hand regards the serve as probably his biggest weapon, his recent clay court mean numbers of 65% service points won and 84% service hold are well above the recent clay court Tour mean. The Frenchman’s first serve ‘bombs’ and second serve ‘kickers’ should allow him to earn plenty of free points today.
Onto the return of serve, and it’s important to note the recent clay court Tour mean numbers here of, 39% return points won, 42% break points converted and opponents hold of 74%. Tungelliti matches up to these with, 43% return points won, 40% break points converted and opponents hold of 66%. Trungelliti clearly has the ability to put plenty of balls into play off the return, however the number that worries me is his break points converted %. I feel like this needs to get above 50% today for him to stand any chance, as opportunities to break the Halys serve are likely to be few and far between. Halys recent clay court mean numbers of 39% return points won, 40% break points won and 77% opponents hold clearly show that he is the inferior returner of the two players, however this is to some extent counteracted by the very weak serving stats of Trungelliti.
Off the ground, Halys will look to hit winners off the forehand side, whilst Trungelliti will look to counter-punch from the back of the court. Trungelliti should be looking to get into Halys backhand wing as much as possible, as that is by some way the Frenchman’s weakest shot. This could then open the court up for the Italian to capitalise. Aside from that plan of attack I fear it might be a long afternoon for the Trungelliti, Halys will be spurred on by the home crowd and if firing, should have too many weapons today.