Rebeka Masarova vs Coco Gauff Prediction & Betting Tips - WTA French Open

Prediction published on 28/05/2023, 10:11  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 28/05/2023 at 11:12 in Tennis Predictions

Sixth seeded Cori Gauff takes on unseeded Rebeka Masarova in the Roland Garros first round. The winner of this match will face either qualifier Arantxa Rus or unseeded Julia Grabher in round two. Gauff reached the final at Roland Garros last year, losing to Iga Swiatek in the final. The American is seeded sixth this year and began 2023 by winning a hard court title in Auckland. Gauff beat her opponent in this match to win the final and only dropped four games. The last 16 of the Australian Open was then reached and the last eight in Doha. Another good run came in Dubai when getting to the semi-finals but losing to Iga Swiatek.  The ranking points continued to be piled up when getting to the last eight at Indian Wells. Her form on clay hasn't been so good though.  Each of her three tournaments has seen her win one match and then lose in the next round. All a bit disappointing considering her clay court season began with a win over Veronika Kudermetova who is in the same part of her Roland Garros draw.

Rebeka Masarova starts this Grand Slam ranked 71st in the world. This is only her third appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam event and her first at Roland Garros. Earlier this month the Spaniard achieved her career high of 67th and began the year down at 130th. As mentioned previously, her year began with a run to the final in Auckland and she'll be hopeful of doing better against Gauff this time around. Six matches had to be won to reach that final and that included wins over Sloane Stephens, Karolina Muchova and Anna Blinkova. On clay this year, Masarova has won an ITF tournament and got to the third round at the WTA 1000 event in Madrid. Masarova lost to Maria Sakkari in Madrid but did take a set off her. It's a big ask to get a win over Gauff but we feel over 19.5 games may be played in this match.