The total games line may even look low at first sight, but
considering how amazing Clijsters is playing right now, everything
above 18 games on matches between her and a non-top player is just way
too much. Clijsters is playing at her best and Safarova will be just
another victim today.
Kim Clijsters absolutely destroyed Tathiana Garbin (6-2 6-1) and
Alicia Molik (6-0 6-3) on her first two matches in here and considering
how she absolutely loves to blow out the lowly players, I expect her to
come fired up to today’s match and beat as soon as possible Safarova in
this match. Clijsters is a horrible matchup for the Czech player, as
she possesses an amazing defensive game that will return every powerful
shot from Safarova and then Clijsters will just use Safarova’s powerful
strokes to redirect them with her amazing counter punching game.
Even if Safarova tries something different today, she really has
nowhere to go. Her only tactic is to hit powerful ground strokes and
when she faces a player that returns them, she ends up losing her
patience and her self destruction begins. That’s what it happened
several times on her career against players like Serena or Jankovic and
that’s what it will happen today against Clijsters. I don’t expect
Safarova to win more than six games today on a 6-4 6-2 type of result
and so, I’ll be taking the under, as it gives us more value than the
spread of 6 games currently on offer.
WTA Brisbane - Daniela Hantuchova vs Andrea Petkovic
I took Daniela Hantuchova yesterday against Agnes Szavay and the
Slovakian player had one of her best performances in a long time by
showing her great shot making skills, winning the match by 6-3 6-1
against a Hungarian player who could do anything to stop Hantuchova
from hitting forehand winners from everywhere in the court. Since
Hantuchova seems to be already at her best level, I’ll be riding her
once again against a player still way out of her league.
As I’ve said, Hantuchova had a very easy win yesterday against
Szavay and even though she was down 0-2 in the first set, she won 12 of
the remaining 14 games, with a huge number of forehand winners.
Hantuchova seemed really confident on court, always trying to control
the rallies and coming to the net to finish the point as soon as
possible. That’s how Hantuchova reached the Top 10 a couple of years
ago and if she keeps playing like that, I can see her breaking into the
Top 15 later in this season.
Her opponent today will be Andrea Petkovic, who is a quite talented
player, however still far from the level of Hantuchova. The German
player won her first two matches in this tournament in three sets and
in both occasions, she lost the first set, just to destroy Iveta
Benesova and Vania King in the remaining sets. That won’t obviously
happen in here today, mostly because Hantuchova is an offensive player
and won’t allow Petkovic to dictate the play, unlike Benesova and King,
who are pretty defensive players and committed the mistake of allowing
the talented and powerful Petkovic to control the points.
Basically what I expect for this match is both players trying to be
aggressive, but with Petkovic committing more errors than Hantuchova.
Also the Slovakian is the most experienced player of the two and if a
set gets to a tight decision, I have to trust on Hantuchova’s good
tie-break record to win that set. Even though I expect Petkovic to win
more than the 4 games won by Szavay yesterday, I still predict
Hantuchova to advance in here quite comfortably and without any set
dropped. Take Hantuchova to win in straight sets.
Pick: 1 unit (Single Dime) on Daniela Hantuchova -1.5 Sets @ -110 on The Greek
WTA Auckland - Shahar Peer vs Maria Kirilenko
This looks to be the closest QF match on paper, however I don’t
think the match will be that close, as the matchup clearly favors the
Israeli Peer, who will be fired up due to the protesters against Israel
occurring right in the front of the tennis complex.
Shahar Peer said that she can actually get a boost of energy from
the protesters and she really showed that yesterday when she destroyed
Rybarikova by 6-1 6-0. The Israeli is one of the fittest players in the
tour and she is really coming back to her best form, as it was shown
late in the 2009 season. She won two WTA titles on hardcourt last Fall
in Guangzhou and Tashkent, however what she really impresses me is the
fact that she is 20-5 on her last 25 matches! Her baseline accuracy
from both wings is fantastic and she can really drive her opponents
crazy by returning every single shot to the court, while hitting the
balls with good depth and with some tricky angles, especially from her
backhand wing. Polona Hercog and Magdalena Rybarikova were the first
victims of the Israeli player this week and I believe Peer will also be
able to make Kirilenko struggle a lot today.
Maria Kirilenko had two very comfortable wins over Tatjana Malek and
Kaia Kanepi in the first two rounds of this tournament, however she
will now face a completely different type of player and I don’t expect
her to be able to cope with Peer’s consistency during the whole match.
Kirilenko got a lot of bonus points from errors by Malek and Kanepi on
her first two matches this week, but now Kirilenko will be the less
consistent player on court today and with Peer giving her no cheap
points via unforced errors, Kirilenko will struggle a lot to make
herself competitive today. Note that Kirilenko’s recent defeats against
Schiavone (3-6 2-6), Pennetta (3-6 3-6) and Date Krumm (6-3 2-6 4-6)
prove exactly this. I expect Peer to come fired up for this match and
take advantage of her superior baseline consistency to comfortably beat
Kirilenko in this match. Peer only struggles against really powerful
opponents who can overpower her and since Kirilenko lacks the firepower
on her shots to do that, I expect the Israeli player to have a solid
win today, covering the spread in that way. Take Peer minus the games
in here.
Pick: 1 unit (Single Dime) on Shahar Peer (-2,5 Games) @ -110 on The Greek