French Friction
Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic have been a dream team. They won the French Open together in 2016, clinched the world #2 in doubles, and won the women's doubles ITF World Champions award for being the best pairing. In March 2017, a single text message changed everything. Caro informed Kiki that she wanted to stop playing doubles and concentrate on her singles career. That was acceptable, but informing her in a text message was something Kiki felt was disrespectful.
What followed was a continuous cat fight, peaking with the whole French Fed Cup team trolling Garcia with a "LOL" tweet. They assumed that Garcia made up an injury so that she didn't have to play in the Fed Cup on the same team with her former partner turned rival. Two years later, the former dream team put their dispute aside and teamed up again in Fed Cup, winning the deciding doubles match against Romania to secure a place in the final.
Regressing Rivals
Focusing on singles did work out for Garcia initially, as her ranking rose into the top 10 after having a dream run in Asia in 2017. In 2018 however, success became elusive. She lost the majority of her points, and more importantly, she also lost the confidence that buoyed her to win back to back titles in Wuhan and Beijing the year before.
This year, the regression hit even harder. Her record is only 25-20 and it's even poorer on hard courts, where she has lost 10 of her 16 matches. After losing in the first round of Wimbledon, Garcia's attempt to vulture the WTA International events in Lausanne and Jurmala ended in consecutive round two losses (against Pera and Paquet). Then when she stepped on American hard courts, the results only got worse. In Toronto, Cincinnati, and New York she suffered first round elimination.
Mladenovic's season has not been much better. When she announced Sascha Bajin as her new coach in April, the tennis world was convinced he could implement improvements that would help Kiki achieve a new level. After a promising start, she regressed and old bad habits reemerged. She is a talented player though. Her first round win against Kerber at the US Open showed what she's capable of when she is playing her best tennis.
Bookie's Bias
The odds in tomorrow's matchup make Garcia a slight favorite and I really can't see why. In all of her last nine meetings, Garcia has been the favorite, in seven of them she had odds of 1.50 or smaller. Wins coming out of these nine matches? Three!
Kiki Mladenovic talked openly about Garcia's dependence of her father when they split. I think she is right. Garcia has all the tools necessary to be a top 10 player, but just like Mladenovic, I'm convinced she needs to let go of her father to fully reach her potential.
In her first round match, Garcia barely got over the line against Martincova, winning 6-4 4-6 7-5. Mladenovic's start was a bit more promising. She defeated Duan in straight sets, 6-2 6-3.
Similar to their previous matchups, I think bookies still overrate Garcia and factor in her talent more heavily than they should. She's still playing with zero confidence. I see the wrong woman favored in this one. That's why I'm excited to get underdog odds backing Mladenovic to defeat Garcia.
