Third Round

Maria Sakkari (1.69) v Karolina Muchova (2.42)

Due to start at 7 pm

Sakkari won their only previous meeting in October 2016 It was in the quarter finals of an ITF tournament in Egypt. She won in straight sets on a hard court.

Overall win percentages are strong for both players but favour Sakkari. It’s the same pattern on clay.

Muchova beat Naomi Osaka in 3 sets in the last round. Her first round win over Qiang Wang was much more comfortable. In that match she faced just 2 break points and was broken once. Her best results this season have been on hard courts. She reached the semi finals of the Australian Open.

Sakkari made a terrible start to the tournament and didn’t win a game in her first set with Amanda Anisimova. She has looked impressive since and easily beat Anett Kontaveit in the last round. Her best results of 2021 have also been on hard courts with semi finals in Abu Dhabi and the Grampians Trophy. She reached the quarter finals in Doha and another semi final in Miami. In September last year she reached the third round of the French Open.

This will be a very tight match. We have a very good chance of seeing 3 sets. I give a slight edge to Sakkari. Back her around 2.30 or if she gets broken. Lay the winner of the first set.

Update: Bizarre match! Sakkari was out played in the first set and didn’t win a game. That was the second time this week that she has started a match with a bagel. Set 2 was much more competitive. Sakkari was broken in the third game but immediately broke back. She missed 2 break chances for a 5-3 lead and missed set points on Muchova’s serve at 5-4. The set went to a tie break. Sakkari went into a 5-0 lead but lost the next 6 points. It looked like she had blown her chance but eventually won the tie break 11-9.
In the third set Sakkari was just the stronger player. She broke serve at the start of the set but was pulled back to 2-2. Three more breaks in the next 3 games left Sakkari up by a break at 4-3. She served for the match at 5-4 but was broken to 15. She didn’t win another game.
Muchova won 6-0, 6-7, 7-5.

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.