World number one Novak Djokovic will have the 66th-ranked Ricardas Berankis for company in his second round match of the 2020 French Open. The match begins at around 11 am local time (10 am BST or 5 am Eastern Time) on Thursday, October 1. Get the live streaming options of this Novak Djokovic v Ricardas Berankis match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Novak Djokovic v Ricardas Berankis Head to Head
There have been two matches between Djokovic and Berankis before this with the Serb winning both. The first came at the 2013 US Open where Djokovic dropped a mere five games in the entire match and this was followed by one as recently as the Cincinnati Masters last month where the world number one won 7-6, 6-4.
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Djokovic Blitzes Past Ymer
The Serb had already proved at the Rome Masters there was no hangover after his default from the US Open but if anyone needed a gentle nudge on why Djokovic would be a tough man to beat even on clay, his opening win over Mikael Ymer was a good indicator.
Djokovic was on court for an hour and 38 minutes and dropped a mere five games in his first round crash course to his Swedish opponent. Truth be told, at times Djokovic didn’t look like he had hit full throttle, he was barely stretched and yet, the win was as easy as they come for the French Open aspirant.
Take for instance the first serve percentage – it was a mere 60% – but he got the job done by winning 74% of the point off those. The Serb had 11 breaking opportunities too and took nine of them, and while he hit 22 unforced errors, there were also 32 winners to go with it.
May be it was a matter of the opponent’s tennis pedigree because at the Rome Masters, Djokovic had to raise his game at different times in the tournament, even in the early stage. There was no such need in this opening round match, and Djokovic, by the looks of things, was allowed to sail through.
Berankis, Djokovic’s second round opponent, will hope to make a better deal of things.
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Berankis Also an Easy Opening Winner
Berankis also made it to the second round with an easy win over Hugo Dellien. The opening round match between those two lasted an hour more than Djokovic’s opener but it still saw Berankis come away with a straight-set win – 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 for the Lithuanian.
Interestingly, while Djokovic was broken in his match, Berankis avoided the same fate over three-setter; in turn he broke Dellien twice in the first set, and once apiece in the next two to move into the second round. The biggest difference, however, came in how Berankis conjured up winners at a will.
The world number 66 smashed a whopping 56 of them as opposed to just 16 from the racquet of his opponent.
What’s interesting to see is Berankis hadn’t played a lot of tennis coming into this tournament, let alone a lot of clay court competitions and yet there was no sign of rust. Berankis’ last sighting on the court had come in the third round of the US Open where he lost to Pablo Carreno-Busta, but for nearly weeks after that, he hadn’t taken to court.
Berankis prefers hard court surfaces to clay, having won 10 of his 12 titles at the lower circuit on that surface. At the French Open, this is is his maiden time in the second round but by the looks of things it might not be too much more than that.
Djokovic v Berankis Prediction and Tip
A 1/80 for a Djokovic win is almost par for the course, while a straight-set win is at 1/5. It’s a safe call against a player who hasn’t done too well on clay for years now.
Tip: Djokovic to win in straight sets: 1/5 (bet365)
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The French Open 2020 will be played from September 27 to October 11. You can watch & bet on the French Open here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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