/ Alan Dudman / 08 June 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Thursday at the French Open 2012 proved to be a disappointing one for Sean Calvert, as Sam Stosur threw in a shocker to bow out of the tournament.

The Aussie shanked her way to a three set loss to Sara Errani in a horrible match that she won't want to watch back any time soon.

Friday is men's semi finals day and on paper the match of the day should prove to be world number one Novak Djokovic taking on the man who beat him here last year, Roger Federer.

The Swiss hasn't managed to get a win against the Serbian since that classic match 12 months ago and Djokovic also came out on top in their most recent meeting, which was on clay in Rome last month.

It's fair to say that neither player has been at their devastating best in Paris this fortnight so far, but hopefully they will bring out the best in one another this afternoon.

They have met five times in total on clay, with Federer leading 3-2 overall, but Nole has won two of the last three.

He's also won six of their last seven matches on all surfaces and despite being under par by his standards for large parts of the tournament, Djokovic was forced to come out with his best stuff by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter finals.

He produced some superb tennis to fight off match points against the Frenchman, but he did allow Tsonga back into the match after taking a commanding lead early on.

And Federer was blown away in the opening sets by a brutal onslaught from Juan Martin Del Potro in his quarter final, but managed to claw his way back with a little help from Delpo's suspect knee.

So both players have been tested coming into this match and we saw an irritated Fed shouting at the crowd after an erroneous call of 'out' from a fan in the Delpo match, which shows that the fire remains in his belly for a second Roland Garros title.

Whether it will be enough to tame the man who seemingly refuses to lose in Slams and is able to fight off match points with pure will power remains to be seen though, as Djokovic chases a career slam.

I think that Nole will just get stronger from having saved those match points against Tsonga and rise to this occasion by breaking Federer's single-handed backhand down in the longer rallies.

Fed will need to be at his attacking best to win this and we haven't really seen that this fortnight so far, so I'm plumping for Djokovic in four sets at [4.1]

Recommended Betfair Bet
Back Djokovic 3-1 at (4.1)