Plum draw gives Murray fine French Open chance

The draw could hardly have been kinder to Andy Murray at the French Open and this perhaps gives him his best chance yet of winning a maiden Grand Slam at Roland Garros.

Murray remains 16/1 in the French Open odds, which may be somewhat of a surprise given the fact that he avoided virtually all of the banana skins in the draw.

Last year, the Scot was handed virtually the worst draw possible in the first round when running into Richard Gasquet and there were a number of dangerous opponents lurking among the unseeded players in the draw this time.

However, rather than facing Ivo Karlovic, Ivan Ljubicic, John Isner or Philipp Kohlschreiber, Murray has been given what appears to be the easier task of facing home qualifier Eric Prodon and world number 118 in the opening round.

Another qualifier is also guaranteed to await Murray in the second round in the shape of Frank Dancevic or Simone Bolelli, while Milos Raonic is the likely opponent in round three.

Raonic is expected to have a big future in the game, but he is expected to be more of a darkhorse at Wimbledon rather than on the clay courts of Roland Garros.

If the seeds progress, round four for Murray could pose the first real test against Alexandr Dolgopolov, who has shown capabilities on the surface recently when beating David Ferrer in Nice.

The highest seed in Murray’s quarter is Jurgen Melzer, but Murray should be expected to progress given that he has beaten the Austrian in all five of their previous meetings.

Then would come the big tests of Nadal in the last four and then Djokovic in the final, but Murray has shown that he can beat both opponents.

Murray came within a whisker of beating Nadal in the semi finals in Monte Carlo, while he fell to Djokovic in a deciding tie-break at the same stage in Rome.

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