Damien Kayat previews Taylor Fritz vs Francisco Cerundolo and Frances Tiafoe vs Alex Zverev in selected 3rd Round matches of the French Open, on the 3rd of June 2023.
2023 ATP Tour
Grand Slam Tennis
French Open
Stade Roland Garros, Paris, France (Outdoor Clay)
Selected Round 3 Matches – 3rd June
Taylor Fritz 4/6 | Francisco Cerundolo 23/20
Taylor Fritz- I almost typed Swift- shushed a booing Roland Garros crowd after his comeback win against home favourite Arthur Rinderknech. It was a moment of outward defiance that typifies the swagger of one of the most consistent players in men’s tennis.
The big-serving American has reached an impressive six semi-finals in 2023 (not to mention back-to-back quarterfinals at the ‘Sunshine Double’). He also won his 5th career ATP title at the Delray Beach Open.
And that form hasn’t been restricted to hardcourt action. He has reached three semi-finals during the European clay-court swing (including an impressive final-four showing at the Monte-Carlo Masters). Fritz isn’t just a one-dimensional American serving machine.
He moves deceptively well for a big guy and finds crazy crosscourt angles on both wings. He reached the quarterfinals here last year in what is still his best Grand Sam showing to date.
24-year-old Argentine Francisco Cerundolo further underlined his dark horse status with a decisive victory against ‘lucky loser’ Yannick Hanfmann. The clay-court specialist enjoyed a breakthrough 2022 campaign, reaching two ATP 500 semi-finals and a Masters 1000 semi-final in Miami.
He also beat Casper Rudd en route to his maiden title in Bastad. He perhaps hasn’t been quite as devastating this year (especially during a disappointing South-American clay-court swing). But he has started to generate some real momentum in recent months.
He reached the quarterfinal stages in Miami, Barcelona and Rome. And he came into this event fresh off a 3rd career ATP final in Lyon. A prototypical clay-courter, Cerundolo has excellent, consistent power in his groundstrokes (especially off that forehand wing).
He will look to defuse the American’s big-serve and take the match as deep as possible.
Verdict: Cerundolo to win in five sets
This will be the first career meeting between these two. This could be a real humdinger. Fritz will look to his serve for dominance while Cerundolo will be pleased to extend the rallies when possible. The Argentine will no doubt enjoy the vast majority of crowd support following Fritz’s gesticulations on Thursday night.
I think he could feed off this energy and grow as the match progresses. I think this one could go all the way and I’m giving the slight edge to Cerundolo. His movement has been brilliant thus far and I can see Fritz potentially tiring in the latter stages.
Frances Tiafoe 19/10 | Alex Zverev 2/5
25-year-old American Frances Tiafoe’s semi-final run at last year’s US Open really highlighted what all the hype has been about. Still struggling for consistency, Tiafoe has nonetheless managed to back up his performance in New York with some fine moments in 2023.
He reached the semi-finals at Indian Wells this year. That is quite significant given the slow nature of those surfaces (they play quite similar to clay conditions). And he then won his 2nd career title in Houston (and his first career title on clay).
In fact, three of his six career finals have come on the sticky stuff. But for all that clay-court pedigree, Tiafoe possesses a truly shocking Roland Garros record. The big-serving American had only progressed to the 2nd round once here in eight visits prior to this year’s event.
But he has corrected that gross underachievement this year, surviving a tricky draw to reach the 3rd round for the first time in his career. He thrashed Krajinovic in the first-round before a solid four-set win against former Aussie Open semi-finalist Aslan Karatsev.
Alex Zverev returns to Paris a year after that ghastly injury forced him to withdraw from his French Open semi-final against Rafa Nadal. It was a truly sickening moment that sidelined the German for the better part of seven months.
Zverev returned to action at this year’s Aussie Open and he has slowly been starting to get his body back to peak physical condition. He followed up a semi-final run in Dubai with a slew of ‘nearly’ results in big events. He reached the round of 16 stage at Indian Wells, Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome.
He clearly isn’t that far away from a big breakthrough. And he will have been buoyed by a semi-final run in Geneva on the eve of this event. And he has looked excellent in Paris, regaining some of the aura that made him the number two player in the world. He looked slightly rusty in the opening two sets of his first-round match with Llyod Harris.
This was perhaps to be expected following last year’s incident. But he clicked into gear in the final set and comes into this following a devastating victory against Alex Molcan. In one of the performances of the tournament thus far, Zverev rolled off 42 winners to blast Molcan off the court in less than two hours.
Verdict: Zverev to win in four
Zverev holds an utterly commanding 6-1 head-to-head advantage over his American opponent. He has won their last four encounters (the last one being the 2021 Vienna Open final). Tiafoe has evolved into a more compelling Grand Slam competitor in recent years.
But Zverev’s performance against Molcan felt like a watershed moment for the German. He is moving with utter freedom and I think his more consistent groundstrokes will win the day here. He also has a more decisive serve that should earn him plenty of cheap points.
