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.
