The final

Ashleigh Barty (1.89) v Aryna Sabalenka (2.1)

Due to start at 5:30 pm

Barty leads their previous matches 4-3. The last time they met was in the Stuttgart final last month. Barty won that one in 3 sets on clay although Sabalenka was injured after the first set. That was their only meeting on clay. Barty has won 3 of their last 4 matches. All Sabalenka’s wins were on hard courts and she won in 2 sets. Three of Barty’s 4 wins went to a deciding set.

Long term overall win percentages are very strong for both players but favour Barty. Surprisingly, she also has the higher ROI. Barty has the better clay results though Sabalenka has improved her clay results in the last year.

Sabalenka has won 14 of 17 on clay in the last 12 months. She has not lost a set so far. Only 2 of her 10 sets saw her opponent win 3 games. She overpowered Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the semi final. Pavlyuchenkova had taken so big scalps in pervious rounds but was never in the match with Sabalenka.

Barty has dropped 2 sets this week. Petra Kvitova and qualifier Tamara Zidansek took her the distance. In the semi final she took out the local favourite, Paula Badosa despite the crowd’s best efforts to lift their player.

Stats for the tournament all favour Sabalenka. She has been like a steam train this week. Barty has looked a little more vulnerable for short periods of matches. Lay Barty around 1.50 and remove or reduce your liability at 2.00. Lay the set 1 winner. Sabalenka can take this.

I have had a handful of questions asking about the advice that I give on this blog and also on Twitter. The most common question is asking if the tips are intended to be backed and left to run.

The short answer is “NO”. The slightly longer answer is “HELL NO”. The long answer is that I very rarely leave a back bet to run until the end of the match. I can think of just 2 occasions in the last year. The clue is in the title of the site. The tips are for TRADING.

The aim of the match picks on here and in the Daily Trading Tips emails is to give you a value entry point. After that you need to manage your position. If you have little tennis trading experience here are some simple ways to manage the trade:

Once the price has reached the target price and you have entered your first trade you are waiting for a significant price move in your favour. This can be a break of serve or your player wins the set. Then you should remove some or all of your liability (risk).

If your player does not perform well and gets broken after you have entered the trade then you can exit with a loss.