Karolina Muchova vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova Prediction & Betting Tips - WTA French Open

Prediction published on 05/06/2023, 07:40  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 05/06/2023 at 10:52 in Tennis Predictions

We're guaranteed an unseeded player in the Roland Garros semi-finals. Karolina Muchova takes on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the last eight of this Grand Slam tournament. The winner faces either second seed Aryna Sabalenka or the unseeded Elina Svitolina in the last four. Muchova is in her first Roland Garros quarter final beating a previous best of a third round in Paris but this is her fourth Grand Slam quarter final. The Czech began this tournament ranked 43rd in the world but is now up to 27th and a win here will see her equal her career high of 19th. Muchova only played a couple of clay court tournaments before Roland Garros. Her best performance was getting to the last 16 in Rome. It's been a good performance by her at Roland Garros with eighth seeded Maria Sakkari and 27th seed Irina Camelia-Begu both being beaten. The last 16 saw her defeat Elina Avanesyan in straight sets. Only one set has been lost so far. That was in her second round match against Nadia Podoroska and it was lost 6-0. Muchova trails her opponent 2-1 in previous meetings and lost the only one played on clay. That was in Madrid two years ago and both sets went to a tie-break.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova reached the final at Roland Garros two years ago. The Russian didn't play here last year due to a knee injury. That has seen her slip down the rankings and this tournament began with her in 333rd place. Entry into the main draw at Roland Garros came via a protected ranking. Her run to this quarter final has taken her up to 112th and a win over Muchova will see her back in the top 60. The 31-year-old is in her third clay court quarter final of the year. One came in an ITF tournament and the most recent in the WTA event held in Strasbourg. The latter saw her beat Magda Linette who was ranked 21st at the time. At Roland Garros, Pavlyuchenkova has had a real battle to get to the last eight. Three of her four matches have seen her have to come from behind to get the win. Three seeds have been beaten, the highest being the 15th seed Liudmila Samsonova in round two. A long match is possible here and we go for over 21.5 games to be played.