There were plenty of players to emerge from the Madrid Masters with work to do ahead of the French Open. The fact that Petra Kvitova, the 16th seed in Madrid, lifted the title confirms that the Roland Garros title is again wide open, as few of the likely challengers are in attention-grabbing form.
Eight of the rest of the top 16 seeds fell in the opening two rounds and only Victoria Azarenka and Li Na made it to the quarter finals. It is hard to make a case for many of the supposed challengers for Paris, with only Azarenka leaving with Spain with much credit.
Victory in the doubles provided small consolation for her defeat in the singles final and the new world number four is certainly playing more consistency than her closest rivals. The winners group from Madrid is a relatively small one, with Julia Goeges joining Kvitova as a player to watch in the womens French Open betting.
The 22-year-old German followed up her Stuttgart heroics by again beating world number one Caroline Wozniacki on the way to a semi final place. She has entered the top 20 of the rankings and clearly has a clay game to be respected at Roland Garros.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands produced the best win of her career in dumping out French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, but is Kvitova, newly installed as world number 10, who was the deserved star of Madrid. It was her third tile of the season and maintains her rapid progress since reaching the last four at Wimbledon last year. Those with Wimbledon free bets to place should certainly bear her in mind.
Wozniacki was a notable loser in slipping out in the third round, Goeges’ aggressive approach providing a blueprint of how to deal with the Dane on clay. Vera Zvonareva, Sam Stosur and, in particular, Schiavone failed to emerge from recent slumps. Last year’s surprise winner would cause an even bigger shock if she defended her French Open title next month.
