French Open last 16: Murray and Ferrer face Chardy and Cilic clashes
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Home hope Jeremy Chardy stands between top British tennis pro Andy Murray and a place in the French Open quarter-finals.
Coral make the third seed and Scottish star Murray their 15/2 third-favourite to scoop Grand Slam glory at Roland Garros this year, and he also holds a handsome 6-1 head-to-head advantage over this French foe.
Having crushed Chardy in straight sets on clay at the Rome Masters before opting to pull out of that tournament citing fatigue, Murray is a firm odds-on 1/10 match favourite to defeat him again.
Dropping just seven games en route to recording that result, Murray made serene progress against Australian competitor Nick Kyrgios, winning 6-4 6-2 6-3 in round three on Saturday morning. Another straight sets win for the British number one here is 8/13, and much more attractive than his outright match win odds.
While Chardy, a 6/1 shot to cause an upset, has knocked out two players ranked in the ATP’s top 20 to book his spot in the last 16, Murray is in a different class to John Isner and David Goffin.
There is guaranteed to be a high-profile casualty on Monday, as there isn’t room for both seventh seed David Ferrer and Marin Cilic in the men’s singles quarter-finals at the French Open.
Ferrer faces Croatian counterpart Cilic for the first time in five years, but they last met on clay and the Spaniard cruised to a straight sets win at the 2010 Madrid Masters.
Based on that, and the fact that clay is Ferrer’s favoured surface, he is an odds-on 2/5 match favourite, and a superb 7/4 to crush Cilic without dropping a set again.
Seeded ninth, Cilic had a much smoother passage through the third round, dealing with Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer in straight sets. Odds of 2/1 say he can follow that up by knocking out Ferrer, who came through in five against another clay court specialist in Italian Simone Bolelli.
Coral betting tip: Ferrer’s exertions have only resulted in his reflexes sharpening, so take those sweet 7/4 odds for him to beat Cilic in straight sets.
