WTA Wimbledon Day One Tips: Van Uytvanck to continue Raducanu's difficulties

The women's singles starts at Wimbledon on Monday, with action from the bottom half of the draw on the card. Returning with his preview is Dan Weston...

Big names expected to progress with ease


There's some cracking matches in prospect on Monday at SW19 in the women's tournament, although we do have the usual array of heavy pre-match favourites who are expected to progress with minimal fuss.

These include grass-court specialist Alison Riske, as well as Angelique Kerber, Maria Sakkari, Jelena Ostapenko, Belinda Bencic and Anett Kontaveit. Also expected to progress is the form player of the warm-up events on grass, Beatriz Haddad Maia, who is 1.26 to get past the Slovenian, Kaja Juvan, who has never shown much of a level on grass historically.


Collins versus Bouzkova worth watching

One of the best matches of the day, at least on paper, is Danielle Collins versus Marie Bouzkova, with both players capable of a high level on their day. However, Collins hasn't played since the French Open, while Bouzkova has had injury issues and only played the one warm-up match. The match should be fairly serve-oriented, and should give us useful insight into the current level of both players.

Raducanu facing tough Van Uytvanck challenge

There's plenty of British interest in day one's proceedings too, so this preview will focus on them, with some interesting pre-match spots to focus on.

Firstly, Emma Raducanu is underdog at 2.52 against Alison Van Uytvanck. The Belgian, Van Uytvanck, has done very well in the grass warm-up events, winning a WTA Challenger in Italy, an ITF 100 in Surbiton and also reaching the quarter-final in Hertogenbosch.

That spells bad news for Raducanu, whose service numbers have fallen markedly since her US Open triumph, so much so that it would be a surprise if she defeated the big-serving Van Uytvanck.

Katie Swan picked up a decent win last week in Bad Homburg over Sloane Stephens, and wasn't disgraced against Bianca Andreescu subsequently either. However, Swan has struggled generally at main tour level and again, a British victory would be a surprise here as well - she faces Marta Kostyuk, who has very high upside. Swan is 3.15 to cause that shock.

Watson and Burrage with chances to progress

Heather Watson and Jodie Burrage round off the Brits in round one action, with Watson the shortest-priced. Watson faces Tamara Korpatsch, who has struggled in warm-up events on grass this season - getting easily beaten by Swan in qualifying last week in Bad Homburg. While Watson is generally quite inconsistent, she's generally been solid on grass historically.

Burrage reached the final of Ilkley recently on grass, and picked up a solid win over Paula Badosa in Eastbourne last week, so should be far from a pushover on grass, so out of the British outsiders, looks the best spot at around 2.80 to make round two.

0 nhận xét Blogger 0 Facebook

Post a Comment

 
Top