French Open 2022, 3rd Round, Saturday, 28.05.2022
The upcoming tennis weekend will be dominated by the French Open 2022. In the French capital, the men are now active in the 3rd round, and the draw also resulted in some eye-level duels.
One of them will be between two players who are still waiting for their first outright victory. Read in my Rublev Garin tip why it is extremely difficult to find a clear favourite in this encounter!
Things have been quite turbulent for Andrey Rublev in Paris so far. The Russian is neither in top form nor have his results completely fallen short of expectations. He has won three titles in 2022, but not a major one.
In his last appearance before the French Open, he was eliminated in Rome right at the start against Filip Krajinovic. It almost happened again a few days ago when he lost a tiebreak in the 1st round against Soon-woo Kwon.
Rublev briefly lost control, received a warning and then regained his composure. He won the match 6-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, but left himself plenty of room to improve.
A little later, Rublev had to play Federico Delbonis. Here, too, his fans saw a victory after four sets, with the favourite only wobbling briefly at 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3. He allowed just one break in both games, a very strong score.
1st round, quarter-finals, 1st round, these are the results the 24-year-old has collected in his three participations so far. Good and bad results alternated, so 2022 would actually be another successful year.
The German betting companies have little doubt that the team will at least make it to the last 16. With odds of 1.35 to 2.95, he is ahead in his 3rd round, has already fought twice against the current opponent.
In 2019, the two duels against Cristian Garin were extremely close, with the results 6-4, 7-6 and 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6 at Wimbledon. Will the Chilean be able to keep the match open for long this time?
Garin has so far played a similar French Open to Andrey Rublev, surviving both rounds in four sets. First, he came back from a set down to win 5-7, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 against Tommy Paul, where he made a strong comeback.
A little later, he beat Ilya Ivashka as well, only managing a weaker set at 6-3, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. He gave up 14 break chances, which is clearly more than Rublev. I cannot speak of Garin’s absolute top form at the moment.
In Houston a few weeks ago he could celebrate a win against Taylor Fritz, but that was his only success in 2022 against a top player. Rublev, ranked number 7 in the world, can certainly be put in this category.
It could also be a bad omen: in 2020, Garin failed in the 3rd round against Karen Khachanov, then a year later against Daniil Medvedev. Russian opponents at the French Open, they don’t suit him at all.
My Rublev Garin tip
Relatively confident without shining, that’s how Adrey Rublev and Cristian Garin are performing in Paris so far. Neither has had the top opponents, which makes the direct encounter all the more difficult to analyse.
The two direct duels have shown me how close this duo usually is. Since I don’t trust either Rublev or Garin to win a match without losing a set, I’ll send the following tip into the race:
We will see more than 31.5 games!
