Shuai Zhang 2.5, Sofia Kenin 1.65

Due to start at 10 am.

Zhang won their only previous match. That was in Indian Wells in March 2018. She won in straight sets on a hard court.

Stronger results for Kenin in the last 12 months. Her hard court results are also better.

Zhang also made the third round of the Australian Open last year. She reached the quarter finals in 2016 as a qualifier. In the first round she came back from losing the first set to Sloane Stephens. I thought Catherine McNally would take a set from her but Zhang won in straight sets.

This is Kenin’s first time in the third round. She has not lost a set so far although she has had 2 low ranked opponents. Ann Li and Martina Trevisan had both come through the qualifying rounds.

I expect to see a higher price on Kenin. Back her around 1.85 to 1.95.

 

Alison Riske 2.12, Julia Goerges 1.86

Due to start around 3:30 am

Goerges leads their previous matches 2-1. They last met in Dubai in February last year. Riske won on a hard court in straight sets. All their matches were on hard courts. Goerges’ last win was also in February 2019 and she won in 3 sets.

Riske has a slightly better win percentage in the last 12 months. She also has a small lead on hard courts and she has a higher ROI. She has played Chinese opposition in both her matches this week. Yafan Wang took her to 3 sets in the first round. Lin Zhu put up very little resistance in the last round.

Goerges has been serving well and has held 92% of her service games. She had a very easy win over Viktoria Kuzmova in the first round. I had expected to have a tough time against Petra Martic and had actually given Martic the edge to win in 3 sets. In fact the match did go to 3 sets but it was Goerges who took the match.

Some value on Riske and I give her the edge.

We have a very good chance of seeing 3 sets. Lay Goerges around 1.50 to 1.55 and remove liability at 2.00. Lay the set 1 winner.

Update: It was a very easy first set for Goerges. She broke the Riske serve 3 times. At the start of the second set Riske broke but was eventually broken back. They went into a tie break which Riske took. Two breaks of serve in the deciding set gave Riske the match.
Riske won 1-6, 7-6, 6-2.