Tennis BETTING PREVIEW - Iga Swiatek vs Irina-Camelia Begu

Tennis

2024-07-27 - Iga Swiatek vs Irina-Camelia Begu

A Sports Betting Preview by FirstDown

Iga Swiatek vs Irina-Camelia Begu
Tennis: Olympic Games First Round
Saturday 27th July 2024 - Scheduled 12pm
11am (British Time)

---

Preview

The Paris Olympic Games return to the famous courts of the French Open, the second time in four Olympic Games that the Tennis tournament will be played on the grounds of a Grand Slam tournament.

After another dominant showing on the red dirt which concluded with another French Open title, Iga Swiatek is going to be a very strong favourite to win the Gold Medal next week before the entire Tour shifts attention to the final Grand Slam of the season played in New York City beginning at the end of August.

The grass courts proved to be too much of a challenge for Swiatek, but the World Number 1 will be confident back on this surface and this looks a good First Round match for her to work her way into the tournament. Preparation for a return to the clay courts would have been outside of tournaments being played between Wimbledon and the Olympic Games, but Iga Swiatek is unlikely to need too much time to adjust.

She is facing an opponent who reached the Semi Final in a clay tournament played in Palermo in the build up to these Games, while Irina-Camelia Begu is a former World Number 22 and deserves respect. These days it has been much tougher work for Begu who is outside the top 100 of the World Rankings, but she did use her Protected Ranking to reach the Third Round at the French Open earlier this year.

The Romanian is very happy on the clay courts and her best results have been on the surface, but this is a massive step up and Irina-Camelia Begu has suffered some one-sided defeats to the likes of Danielle Collins and Karolina Muchova on the red dirt this season.

Iga Swiatek also crushed Begu when these players met at Wimbledon in 2021 and that is on the least favoured surface for the World Number 1. On the courts of Roland Garros, the Pole is expected to be that much happier and she may be able to crush this opponent and cover what is a very big handicap spread for a best of three set match.

However, it is a mark that Swiatek has regularly covered on the clay courts in her dominant time at the top and she can do the same here.

Prediction

Lay the games with the World Number 1 and clay court dominant player on the WTA Tour, even at this wide handicap mark.

The Pick :

Iga Swiatek 2-0 Irina-Camelia Begu

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

I'll back Iga Swiatek - 7.5 Games at 1.72 with BetFred