Semi Final
Ashleigh Barty (1.55) v Elina Svitolina (2.8)
Due to start at 8 pm
Svitolina leads their previous matches 5-1. Their most recent meeting was in October 2019 in Shenzhen. Barty won in straight sets on an indoor hard court. Svitolina’s last win was in March 2019 in Indian Wells on a hard court. She won in 3 tight sets. All Svitolina’s wins were when she was the higher ranked player.
Long term and also their 12 month overall win percentages are better for Barty. Hard court results are strong for both players but Barty has a slight lead.
Barty has needed a deciding set in 3 of her 4 matches. She looked shaky in the first round against Kristina Kucova. She was 2-5 down in the third set before staging her recovery. Jelena Ostapenko didn’t offer much resistance in the second round. In the third round she met Victoria Azarenka. She easily took the first set but it looked like she could be in trouble when she lost the second set 1-6. In fact Barty ran away with the third. Barty’s quarter final clash with Aryna Sabalenka was a real battle. Barty took the opening set with a single late break of serve. In the next set there were no breaks of serve and Sabalenka took the tie break 7-5. The third set was almost a carbon copy of the first with Barty taking a late break of serve and serving out in the next game for the match.
Svitolina dropped the opening set to Shelby Rogers in the first round. In the second set she had treatment for a wrist injury and started to play better tennis after it was strapped. Her second round win over Ekaterina Alexandrova was in straight sets but it was far from being an easy win. In the first set she had to come back twice from being a break behind. The set went into a tie break which Svitolina took comfortably 7-1. In the second set it was Svitolina who break first but Alexandrova immediately broke back. When Alexandrova served at 4-5 Svitolina broke serve to take the match. In the third round She faced Petra Kvitova as underdog. Kvitova got off to a fast start and took the first set 6-2. Their second set was very tight and there were no break points in the first 10 games. Kvitova was broken in the next game and Svitolina served out the set. The third set was a messy one. Svitolina took a 3-0 lead with 2 breaks of serve. Kvitova then took the next 4 games. Svitolina broke for a 5-4 lead but lost her own serve serving for the match. She immediately broke again and this time held serve to take the set 7-5. She was broken 3 times by Anastasija Sevastova in the last round but won in 2 sets.
Stats for the tournament favour Svitolina for everything except service holds. Barty leads that stat 85% v 68%. I favour Barty to win but there is a good chance of it going to 3 sets. Back Barty above 2.00 or if she loses the first set.
Update: Barty took a double break 4-1 lead. Svitolina recovered 1 of the breaks and had 2 break points to get back to 4-4 but didn’t convert them. Barty then broke her again to take the set. In the second set Barty took the first break to lead 3-1. Svitolina immediately broke back. Barty broke her again in the next game and held on for the match.
Barty won 6-3, 6-3.
I have had a handful of questions in the last few months 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.
