French Open Women's Final Tips: Swiatek value to complete perfect tournament

French Open Women's Final Tips: Swiatek value to complete perfect tournament

It's the French Open women's singles final this afternoon, and having won six consecutive matches in straight sets, Iga Swiatek goes into the match as the favourite. Dan Weston previews the match...

Swiatek and Kenin meet in surprise final

I don't think it's a wild statement to suggest that you'd have got huge odds on an Iga Swiatek versus Sofia Kenin final several weeks ago, but here we are! Swiatek, a fortnight ago, was simply a player with huge future potential who was making her way towards being a top 50 regular, while Kenin was looking to bounce back from a double bagel defeat at the hands of Victoria Azarenka in Rome.

Swiatek dominant over all opposition so far

However, it's probably fair to suggest that the duo have had rather different paths to the final. Swiatek - no doubt the 'form' player - is yet to drop a set this tournament and has won 9/12 sets via a 6-1 or 6-2 scoreline. Quite simply, you don't get much better numbers than Swiatek has produced in the French Open and she's easily got the better of all of her opponents - world number one and pre-tournament favourite Simona Halep included - with no player coming remotely close to testing the Polish 19-year-old so far.

Matters have been rather different for Kenin, who has needed to fight through a number of matches to get to the final. Four of her six matches have gone the distance and she's lost the first set twice - against Ana Bogdan and Fiona Ferro - before winning the next two.

Swiatek with the better clay data

Given those circumstances, it's not surprising to see Swiatek having much better hold/break data in this tournament and she's also played 44 fewer games across those six matches, so if there are any fatigue concerns, they should be levelled at Kenin as opposed to Swiatek.

Not only does Swiatek have the better tournament data, but she also has better medium-term data as well. Her ITF numbers on clay were unbelievably good, and she's been able to translate to the main tour as well.

Of course, we could see the more experienced player adjust to the pressure of a Grand Slam final more, and Kenin obviously has already won a Grand Slam having won the Australian Open in January. However, these are simply intangibles and Swiatek has shown no nerves to this point. I make Swiatek the 1.41 favourite for this, so the market line of 1.64 looks reasonably generous - and this is today's recommendation.