French Open Preview + Daily Picks

Either Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray will pop their Roland Garros’ cherry in Sunday’s final. The ATP’s two dominant players of 2016 meet for the 34th time overall and fourth already this season. Murray broke a four match losing skid to the Serb last month, when he took the title in Rome 6-3, 6-3.

(1) Novak Djokovic vs (2) Andy Murray
The sport’s elite meet in the 2016 French Open final with both Djokovic and Murray seeking their first title at Roland Garros. For Djokovic, it’s a chance to complete the Career Grand Slam. A win would also break Djokovic free of a time on the all-time Slam winners list with Bjorn Borg. Both have won eleven Grand Slam titles. Djokovic remains four behind Rafael Nadal and Pete Sampras with Roger Federer still the king with 17 slam titles. For Murray, it’s a chance to one-up his fiercest rival by beating him to the one title that has eluded the Serb for years. The Scot will need to overturn his poor record in Grand Slam finals. He is just 2-7 with Djokovic responsible for four of those defeats.

Djokovic has rarely been troubled through six matches at Roland Garros this run. He culminated his move to the final with a dominant 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 win over 13th seed Dominic Thiem. The top seed was all over the Austrian’s serve in their semifinal match, breaking Thiem six times on 13 chances. Djokovic won nearly half the points played off Thiem’s serve (41/83) and was clean with his own serve, broken just one time on four chances. Thiem also didn’t have a ton of time to craft winners as the match wore on. He did tally 27, but sprayed 34 unforced errors to go against that. Djokovic targeted the Thiem forehand, which accounted for 18 of those errors. The Serb himself had 15 winners and 15 unforced errors.

Murray took advantage of a wobbly serving performance from 3rd seed Stan Wawrinka to eliminate the 2015 champion 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 in the semis. Wawrinka dished out 15 break chances with Murray converting on five. It was Murray’s serve that was far more impressive on the day. The Scot won 80 of 109 points with 58 of those coming off a solid first serve. Murray would only be broken once on five tries. As expected, Wawrinka went big on his ground strokes with 41 winners, but tallied 43 unforced errors on top of that. Murray was economical with 25 winners and 22 unforced errors.

After the win, Murray said he was extremely proud of the win, saying “I never expected to reach the final here. I always struggled on the clay and in the last two years, I’ve had some great results.”

Murray sounded very emotional with those comments, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Let’s put it on the table right away. The result in Rome was positive for Andy, but Djokovic had been run through a ringer with long and taxing matches back-to-back against Rafael Nadal and Kei Nishikori. The Nishikori match did not end early the night before the day-time final, thus putting Djokovic at a further disadvantage. Now Andy fans don’t get your bacon sizzling, Murray deserved the win and gets all the credit, but this scenario at Roland Garros will at least put Djokovic in better physical condition heading into the final.

To the task at hand. Let’s start with Novak Djokovic. How does he finally toss the GIGANTIC monkey off his back that is that elusive French Open title? For starters, his mental game plan needs to be on-point. Nearly anyone who watched the Rome final could see the agitation that resided within Djokovic from start to finish. He simply could not find a way to get going against Murray and it disgusted him. On top of that, rain had slicken the surface some, so Djokovic seemed to focus more on that as a point for his struggles rather than the man across the net from him. A positive mental approach will be needed on Sunday.

What that means is that Djokovic should be looking to crack the Murray serve as early as possible. That was part of the maddening effect on Djokovic in Rome. He could not get enough break chances against Murray. He only saw three and the Scot saved them all. Earlier in Madrid when Djokovic prevailed in three sets, the Serb broke Murray four times on six chances. In their Australian Open finals clash this season, Djokovic broke Murray five times on 12 chances. Not being able to puncture the Murray serve was a key component to Djokovic’s agitated mental state in Rome.