Daily match picks

Angelique Kerber 2.16, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 1.85

Due to start at 6 am.

Head to heads are 7-7. The last time they played was in September last year in Osaka, Japan. Pavlyuchenkova won their semi final match on a hard court in straight sets. Their last 7 matches were on hard courts. Pavlyuchenkova leads 4-3 in those 7 matches.

Pavlyuchenkova hasn’t lost a set so far. She beat Karolina Pliskova in 2 tie break sets in the last round. Pliskova did not serve as well as she can. In the second round Pavlyuchenkova faced American Taylor Townsend and that was also a close match. Pavlyuchenkova played well and was only broken twice.

Kerber was pretty comfortable in her first 2 matches and started very strongly against Camila Giorgi in the third round. Maybe she relaxed a little in the second set after easily winning set 1 and Giorgi nicked the set in a tie break.

Kerber has better stats for the tournament. Some value on her. Kerber has been more solid on serve than Pliskova was against Pavlyuchenkova. We have a very good chance of seeing 3 sets.

Lay Pavlyuchenkova around 1.65 and remove the liability at 2.30. Lay the set 1 winner. Long match expected.

   

Tennnys Sandgren 2.52, Fabio Fognini 1.65

Due to start around 5 am.

Fognini leads their previous matches 2-1. Their last match was at Wimbledon last July and Sandgren won in straight sets. Both of Fognini’s wins were on clay.

Overall results are quite even in the last 12 months. Fognini has stronger hard court results.

Fognini had his first straight sets win of the tournament in the last round. Guido Pella had a problem with his foot but Fognini played a very solid match. In the previous 2 rounds he beat Bautista Agut and Reilly Opelka in fifth set tie breaks.

Sandgren beat Sam Querrey and Matteo Berrettini as underdog. Berettini almost fought back from 2 sets down in their second round match. Sandgren took that one in 5 sets. He also came under a lot of pressure from Querrey and faced 14 break points but was only broken twice. Fognini will also make him work very hard for his service holds and is a much better returner than Querrey is.

This could be another 5 setter for Fognini. Back him around 1.95. I expect Sandgren to take at least a set. Lay the set 1 winner.