Damien Kayat previews the ATP Tour French Open selected quarterfinals between Andrey Rublev and Marin Cilic as well as Casper Rudd vs Holger Rune on 01 June 2022.
2022 ATP Tour
Grand Slam Tennis
French Open
Stade Roland Garros, Paris, France (Outdoor Clay)
Selected Quarterfinals- 1st June
Andrey Rublev (7) (61/100) vs Marin Cilic (20) (5/4)
I never really knew how to feel about Andrey Rublev as we entered this year’s French Open. He has enjoyed a very successful season on paper, winning titles in Marseille, Dubai, and Serbia. But he is still yet to progress past the quarterfinal stage of a Slam.
It’s not often that you see such a discrepancy between Grand Slam success and general tour-level success. And he never really excelled in any of the key forerunners to Roland Garros (though he did beat a rusty Novak Djokovic in the final of the Serbian Open). He has benefitted from a favourable draw this year. Furthermore, Jannik Sinner was forced to withdraw midway through their round of 16 clash.
Rublev will feel refreshed and he should be salivating at the way the draw has unfolded. The Russian will be under intense pressure to debunk the myth that he isn’t cut out for Grand Slam success. His next opponent happens to be someone with impeccable Grand Slam pedigree: Marin Cilic.
Marin Cilic’s stunning upset performance against Danil Medvedev has completely blown open this chaotic half of the draw. In a battle of hardcourt specialists, Cilic produced a vintage display of decisive clay-court tennis.
He won a massive 90% of his first-serve points. Cilic really needs that weapon to be ticking to be successful. This will be his first Grand Slam quarterfinal since the 2018 US Open. The former US Open champion and three-time Grand Slam finalist seems to have found inspiration this week. He won his 19th title in Stuttgart last year but he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in 2022.
I pretty much thought that his days of Grand Slam contention were behind him. But he has been brilliant in Paris, playing some of the best tennis of his latter career. He has only dropped one set thus far but he will need to elevate his game even further against baseline dynamo Andrey Rublev.
The Verdict: Rublev to win in four at 32/10- Rublev leads the head-to-head with Cilic 4-2. That includes four consecutive victories between 2019 and 2021. But Cilic won when they met at this year’s Aussie Open. He also won their only ever clay-court encounter at the 2015 Geneva Open. Cilic will have to serve well should he stand any chance in this match. Rublev is a top-class athlete who will dominate the longer exchanges. I think Rublev’s incessant athleticism may prove too much for an in-form Cilic.
Casper Rudd (8) (1/2) vs Holger Rune (13/8)
I have been fairly dismissive of Casper Rudd leading into this year’s French Open (despite his obvious clay-court credentials).
I have always seen him as a player who accumulates nice statistical data in fringe events but underwhelms on the bigger stage. His unexpected run to this year’s Miami Open final was a potential gamechanger. Rudd’s success has largely been restricted to clay. But to reach an ATP 1000 final on hardcourts shows a surprising level of maturity. The key to this improvement seems to stem from an improved serve.
The Miami result looked like a harbinger of things to come for the European clay-court swing. But the Norwegian surprisingly struggled during the opening salvos of the clay-court season. He picked up his pace towards the end, reaching the semi-finals in Rome before defending his title in Geneva. He now has a 47-10 record on clay since the start of 2021.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Rudd. He needed to come back from the brink of defeat against Sonego. And he dropped off the pace against Hurkacz in that 3rd set. He is in the highly favourable half of the draw and will feel quietly confident of a maiden Grand Slam semi-final appearance.
But he will need to take out the surprise package of this year’s event: Holger Rune. It’s rare that the men’s draw comes up with the biggest outlier come quarterfinal time. But Holger Rune has thrived despite a nightmare draw.
He beat the dangerous Denis Shapovalov in the opening round. And he just defeated 2021 Roland Garros finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas in four sets. Where did this come from? To be fair, Rune has been building up to something special on the clay this year. He won his first title in Munich (beating home favourite Alex Zverev in the process). He then reached the semi-finals in Lyon prior to this event. Bug few could have envisaged this level of performance.
The 19-year-old Dane has served efficiently and played with plenty of aggression (he hit 53 winners in his brilliant victory against Tsitsipas).
The Verdict: Rune to win at 13/8- This will be the 4th meeting between these two. Rudd has absolutely dominated their rivalry (he is yet to drop a set against Rune). This included a comfortable victory at this year’s Monte-Carlo Masters. This is an interesting matchup between two contrasting styles. Rune will look to be the aggressor while Rudd will stay as far back as possible and defend for his life. I think there has been enough evidence this fortnight to suggest that Rune could pull off another big upset here.
