Sloane Stephens vs Varvara Gracheva Prediction & Betting Tips - WTA French Open

Prediction published on 30/05/2023, 08:18  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 30/05/2023 at 09:16 in Tennis Predictions

Unseeded Sloane Stephens caused an upset in the Roland Garros first round. The American beat 16th seeded Karolina Pliskova and now takes on unseeded Varvara Gracheva. Stephens began this tournament ranked 30th but the seedings were announced before she returned to the top 30. That was achieved when getting to the last four of the clay court tournament in Rabat last week. Her clay court season has been going well with a title won in Saint Malo but no top 100 players were beaten. Stephens loves playing at Roland Garros and reached the final in 2018. Two more quarter final appearances have been achieved since then, including last year. That means Stephens has a lot of points to defend this year and the American is down to 49th in the live rankings.

Varvara Gracheva had to go to three sets to win her first round match at Roland Garros. Dalma Galfi took the middle set off Gracheva but the higher ranked player only lost one game in the final set. Gracheva started this Grand Slam in 41st place in the rankings. That was a career high but her first round win has taken her up to 38th place. The Russian recently reached the last four of the WTA 125 event held in Paris. Last week saw her in a WTA 250 event in Strasbourg, losing in the quarter finals to Elina Svitolina. Her best performance this year was when getting to the final of the ATX Open, losing to Marta Kostyuk and not getting her hand shook afterwards. Stephens was beaten on the way to that final and Gracheva leads her 2-1 in previous meetings. This is their first match on clay though. A win here will take Gracheva into a third successive last 32 at Roland Garros. Stephens looks to be in the better form though and we go for her to win this match.