By Antony Jordan
The second Grand Slam event of the tennis season comes to a close this Saturday on the red clay of Roland Garros as Jelena Ostapenko and Simona Halep do battle to become the 2017 French Open champion. The players have not faced each other previously and are both looking to claim their first Grand Slam title, so this match promises much. Ostapenko has reached her first final in one of the biggest tennis events by upsetting the odds throughout this tournament, while Halep is looking to avenge her loss to Maria Sharapova here in 2014 and become world number one. Who will win?
We preview the WTA Final with online sportsbook Bet365.com to provide our best French Open picks in this decider.
WTA French Open Final Odds:
Ostapenko celebrated her 20th birthday on Thursday by becoming the first Latvian player to reach a Grand Slam final as she overcame 30th seed Timea Bacsinszky. It was not an easy win for the youngster as she needed all three sets in a 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 victory, but she has form for this type of battling performance at the French Open this year. She lost the first set to 23rd and 11th seeds Sam Stosur and Caroline Wozniacki in her two matches before the Semi Finals and Ostapenko fought through those early setbacks to progress. She’ll now be full of confidence that she can do the same against the third seed in this final too.
If Simona Halep is to take the top spot in the world tennis rankings by claiming this Grand Slam title she will have done it the hard way as she needed three sets to overcome the fifth and second seeds in her last two matches. She battled past Elina Svitolina first and had a close call at exiting the tournament after losing the first set before edging out the Ukrainian in a tie breaker in the second before cruising through the final set to book a place against Karolina Pliskova at the final four stage. The Romanian two-time French Open finalist took the first and third sets in this clash either side of spirited comeback in the second set from the Czech world number three, but can Halep now go one better than three years ago to take this title?
Halep certainly has the more experience of these two players and this will be paramount in her second Grand Slam final as it regularly happens that first time finalists become over-awed at their first attempt of taking one of the biggest prizes in tennis. Halep has also claimed the Madrid title and she reached the final in Rome during the build-up to this event so she will be confident about her chances at winning, but with Ostapenko having lifted the clay court title in Charleston and reached the final four stage in Prague she too will be confident.
We agree with the Bet365 odds that suggest Halep will secure this Grand Slam title, but we do not see it happening as easily as those odds predict. We expect the young Latvian to push her all the way and our money is on this match to go long.