Like in all two legged post season games, if the host loses the first leg they are forced to gamble in the second, but that goes double in Italy as, if teams are level after both matches, the one with the highest league placing will progress.
 

Traditionally these games get very stretched as you might expect and are as far removed from a "normal" Serie B fixture as possible, second leg semi finals over the last four seasons have seen an average of 3.38 goals, with all eight matches producing at least two goals and both teams scoring in every game.
 

French Open Tennis:
 

ATP: Roger Federer- Stanislas Wawrinka
 

An incredible 25 grand slam finals for Roger Federer, but only two in the last four years, both at his beloved Wimbledon and he has "only" made it past the quarter final stage in four of his last ten attempts, he remains competitive, but time catches up with everyone eventually, even the greatest player of modern times and clay has always been his worst surface by some way. It is all relative and in a non Nadal generation he might well have won 3-4 titles at Roland Garros, but were it not for Robin Soderling doing the hard work in 2009, he might not have even won one. My point is that he has always had to work twice as hard for a quarter of the success on clay, his overall game is not as strong as it was and others have improved.
 

WTA: Garbine Muguruza- Lucie Safarova
 

Both players have won for us at Roland Garros, ahead of Lucie Safarova's fine win over Maria Sharapova yesterday I wrote ....Surprisingly, as they are the same age, these two have not met much, just five times, Safarova won the first on the "non-clay" clay of Madrid, Sharapova the other four, the last three have all gone the distance, two were on clay ( one indoor) the last of those was in Stuttgart last year and decided by three tie breakers. Safarova has always promised a deep run here, on what she claims is her favourite surface, but has always played well just before, or immediately after , yet never brought her A game to Paris. She has shown signs that it is close this time and on song she has a devastating return and strong serve, she will make errors, her game is very much hit and miss, but she has appeared to have that under control at present and the unforced errors at RG have been minimal. Sharapova spoke about the "problem" of playing left handed opponents in her post Stosur interview and I doubt she is looking forward to today too much. Five of her last 8 matches against top 20 lefties on clay have gone the distance and 8 of Masha's last 11 on all surfaces have gone to a third set.
 

We took Garbine Muguruza (pictured) to beat Angelique Kerber last week....

Garbine Muguruza had a breakthrough run to the quarter finals here last year, beating Serena Williams for the loss of only four games and taking eventutal champion Maria Sharapova to the brink, winning the first set 6-1 and losing the second 7-5. She has built on that and has been ranked top 20 for singles and top 10 for doubles in 2015. Ahead of her match with Masha I wrote ....
 

In the first meeting, she beat Muguruza by eight games, her serve was electric and she just cannot be at that level today, we have seen no evidence of it and it is unlikely in the extreme anyway. Plus, the Spanish player is much improved and showed no nerves in seeing off Serena Williams in R2 , or subsequently, that win gave her great confidence and she is yet to drop a set at RG. Still only 20 yo she is improving on a month by month basis and is a big hitter and tactically sound, she cut out the angles for Serena, thumping calls to centre court and that tactic can work equally well today, especially if she can mix that up by trying to draw Masha off the baseline, with the Russian only really happy with straight side to side play and out of her comfort zone in any other direction.

The 21 yo again had Serena in trouble at the Australian Open in January and we saw in both meetings with the best player of modern times and against Sharapova, that Muguruza can not only hit with the best, but she is tactically very sound and a fast starter. She is 0-3 lifetime against Kerber, but in the last meeting, which came in Sydney this year, she took the first set 6-0 and won a lot of cheap points, just coming unstuck eventually when her second serve went missing against the wily Kerber. The German player is very solid and improved on clay, but this is far and away her worst surface and she is 1-3 here in Paris v top 20 and 5-6 against top 50 ranked players and most of those she beat either never really made the breakthrough or were past their sell by date, she is also 2-6 over the last two seasons against players who are 1.82m +. Muguruza also made the semis in doubles here last season, looks to have refound her form in time to defend a lot of ranking points and clearly has positive mental memories and feels comfortable in Paris.
 

 

ATP: Ana Ivanovic-Elina Svitolina

Briefly, Elina SVitolina has plenty of potential and there is a lot to like about her game, but we speak often about grand slams being a learning curve and most players have to make a quarter before (later in their career) a semi and so on, this is the 20 yo Ukranian's first last eight appearance in a slam and she was plenty nervous enough at the business end of her match with Alize Cornet and I suspect her knees might be knocking just a little even before the start of this one. Ana Ivanovic could be a little anxious too, in her first QF @ Roland Garros since she won the title in 2008.