Elena Rybakina will take on Madison Keys while Daria Kasatkina faces off against Shelby Rogers in the third round at the French Open. Damien Kayat previews.
2022 WTA Tour
Grand Slam Tennis
French Open
Stade Roland Garros, Paris, France (Outdoor Clay)
Selected 3rd Round Matches- 28th May
Elena Rybakina (16) (53/100) vs Madison Keys (22) (29/20)
22-year-old Elena Rybakina will be looking to emulate her breakthrough performance at last year’s French Open. The Kazakh memorably beat Serena Williams en route to a historic quarterfinal appearance. Rybakina is an ultra-aggressive player who has shown a penchant for clay in the past. She won her maiden WTA title at the 2019 Buicharest Open.
She would also go on to reach the Strasbourg final in 2020. 2020 was a crazy year for Rybakina: she would ultimately lead the WTA in finals for the season (5). But the Covid shutdown came at a cruel time, robbing Rybakina of all that momentum. She seemed to have regathered some momentum at the start of this year, going all the way to the final in Adelaide. But since then, it has been a slightly scratchy affair for the big-serving Rybakina. Her clay-court form has been humdrum and she wasn’t really on my radar going into this event.
But after surviving a nervy first-round match against Rus, Rybakina showed what she was capable of with a devastating performance against wildcard Katy Volynets (how is that for an apt tennis name).
27-year-old American Madison Keys is born for this arena. She is one of those players who manages to conjure up her best tennis on the Grand Slam stage. She has reached the quarterfinals in eight slams.
That includes four semi-final appearances and a runner-up showing at the 2017 US Open. Keys started this year encouragingly, winning her 6th title in Adelaide before a typically deep semi-final run. Her form has been pretty non-existent since then. But form doesn’t really matter for this specialist Grand Slam operator.
Though she has stated a preference for hardcourts, Keys actually has quite a distinguished clay-court pedigree. She reached the Rome final in 2016 before winning the 2019 Charleston Open. More importantly, she reached the semi-finals and quarterfinals here in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Keys came through a true war of attrition in her opening win against Kalinskaya. She looked far more convincing against home favourite Caroline Garcia.
Her serve and forehand seem to be in tiptop shape and she will be quietly confident of progressing to the 2nd week.
The Verdict: Keys to win in three at 46/10- This will be the first career meeting between these two. Rybakina and Keys actually have similar characteristics. They both rely on a strong serve and forehand and they both tend to like shortened exchanges. Whoever serves the best will dominate. And this is where I think Keys’ Grand Slam muscle memory will kick in. She has the in-built experience to deal with the high-pressure situations.
Daria Kasatkina (20) (39/100) vs Shelby Rogers (19/10)
Daria Kasatkina has clawed her way back into relevance wonderfully over the past 18 months. A former top 10, Kasatkina’s rankings dropped to the point where she was lingering outside the world’s top 70.
But she enjoyed a career renaissance in 2021, reaching four finals and winning two titles. A self-proclaimed clay-court fanatic, Kasatkina won the Charleston Open in 2017. She also reached the quarterfinals here in 2018. She has an amazing repertoire of shot-making that should make her ideally suited to this surface. But she has generally underperformed on clay.
But she came into this year’s French Open off the back of a stunning run to the Rome semi-finals (this included a victory over 2nd seed Paula Badosa). She seems to have carried that form into Roland Garros, dropping just five games in her two matches thus far.
I really missed the boat with that disastrous Collins-Rogers prediction. I honestly thought that Collins had too much quality for perennial giant-killer Shelby Rogers. Perhaps I should have put more stock in her recent clay-court form. Regardless, this has only further cemented Rogers’ status as the queen of Grand Slam upsets. Rogers absolutely obliterated Collins’ service games.
She won a staggering 53% of received points. She was ultra-aggressive on Collins’ 2nd serve and the result never looked in doubt. Can she emulate her 2016 performance and go as far as the quarterfinal stage? Rogers is a dangerous floater that nobody wants to play in the early stages. But there’s a reason that’s she’s known more for upsets than title success. Consistency, Rogers’ aggressive, unrelenting approach isn’t best suited to the rigours of an entire title run. Could she debunk the sceptics again?
The Verdict: Kasatkina to win in three at 31/10- This will be the 2nd meeting between these two. Rogers leads the rivalry 1-0 after a 2017 victory in Miami (though it’s hard to glean too much from such an old match). This is a classic matchup of brute strength vs dexterity. Rogers will look to keep the points short while Kasatkina will test the mobility of the American. I think that Kasatkina will have the game to wear Rogers down. Collins- like Rogers- tends to gravitate to all-or-nothing tennis. Kasatkina is a craftier opponent who will worm her way into points and mix things up.
