To put it another way, the First Round may have been split over two days, but the entire Second Round is scheduled to be completed on Tuesday. This will mean the Third Round is played on Wednesday, the Quarter Finals on Thursday and the Semi Final and Final will be completed on Friday and Saturday.
Sixteen Second Round matches are set to be played on Tuesday and a number of courts are being used on what is going to be an extremely busy day for a tournament outside of the Grand Slam events.
Matches are also scheduled for the tournaments being run by the ATP Tour, although the Picks, if any, from Los Cabos and Rio de Janeiro will be added to this thread, as will the weekly update once all of the Monday scheduled matches are completed.
There are not going to be any Picks from the ATP Doha matches scheduled for Tuesday- the only one that even had me a little interested to find an angle proved unappealing in the end and that will be a tournament that will hopefully provide more options as we move into the Second Round and beyond.
Leylah Fernandez - 4.5 games v Jasmine Paolini: It was perhaps not as easy as the final scoreboard might have suggested, but Leylah Fernandez did play well enough to earn her spot in the Second Round at the WTA Dubai event. This keeps some positive momentum behind the Canadian who had not had the best start to 2024, but who played well in Doha last week and looks to have brung that form into this latest WTA 1000 tournament.
She was a favourite to beat Bernarda Pera and Leylah Fernandez will be the favourite again when she takes on Italian Jasmine Paolini in the Second Round.
Jasmine Paolini has had to Qualify for the WTA Dubai event in the last couple of years and managed to do that each time, but she had not won a main draw match until beating Beatriz Haddad Maia in the First Round on Sunday. The fightback within that match will have given Jasmine Paolini confidence and she is playing on a career high World Ranking mark.
Unsurprisingly there have been plenty of successes on the clay courts, but Paolini is a solid enough hard court player who deserves to be respected. She reached the Fourth Round at the Australian Open and Jasmine Paolini has been able to snap a three match losing run in coming from behind to beat Haddad Maia.
There is no doubt that there is still room for improvement in her tennis on the hard courts- over the last twelve months it has been seen that the Paolini serve can be a little vulnerable when playing top 50 Ranked opponents on this surface. That puts a bit more pressure on the return, which is clearly more challenging on the faster surfaces compared with her favoured clay courts.
You may not always expect Leylah Fernandez to have very strong serving numbers, but she does look after that shot well enough. If the Canadian can get enough first serves in play, she will believe she can dictate the tempo of this match and that will be key for Fernandez as she looks to earn a place in the Third Round.
The head to head will certainly give Leylah Fernandez plenty of confidence too having won all three previous matches against Jasmine Paolini. All of those have been on the hard courts and Fernandez is yet to drop a set, while the two most recent wins were both played in 2023.
Leylah Fernandez has had a clear edge in her serving games in the two wins produced over Jasmine Paolini last season and she won 51% of points played against the Paolini serve. That is likely to be the key to this match and the former US Open Runner Up can find a way to win and cover as she progresses to the Third Round of back to back tournaments in the Middle East.
Marketa Vondrousova - 4.5 games v Payton Stearns: A win over Mirra Andreeva should give Payton Stearns a boost in confidence as she snapped a four match losing run to open her 2024 season.
It was a back and forth match against the talented teenager, but Stearns was able to come out on top and move into this Second Round match against Marketa Vondrousova.
After playing well at the US Open in September, Payton Stearns has really struggled for form in her hard court matches. Following her Fourth Round exit in New York City, Stearns had been on a 3-9 run on the Tour in hard court matches before getting the better of Andreeva in the First Round.
Marketa Vondrousova has not exactly been at her best level in 2024 herself, but there were some signs that she was getting closer last week in Doha. She had chances in her loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, although there are some question marks about Vondrousova's current form and whether she can cover such a big handicap mark.
She has beaten Payton Stearns pretty comfortably in the two previous matches- one of those was at Wimbledon, a tournament Marketa Vondrousova went on to win, and the other was at the US Open.
Much like Payton Stearns, Marketa Vondrousova followed the US Open with a relatively poor run of form that has seeped into the 2024 season.
However, over the last twelve months, Stearns has struggled to a 1-8 record when facing top 50 Ranked opponents on the hard courts and her numbers have been pretty poor in that time too. While it is very difficult to trust Marketa Vondrousova on her current form, she has tended to be good enough to beat those outside of the top 20 of the World Rankings and the Czech player has had an edge in the serving numbers when facing Payton Stearns.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v Liudmila Samsonova: It looks a good opportunity to back Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to continue her strong form from Doha as a slight underdog in this Second Round match.
A relatively comfortable win was produced in the First Round and there should not be any excuses about a long week in Doha in preventing Pavlyuchenkova from finding her best tennis in Dubai. The lack of distance between the tournaments and the fact that her Semi Final defeat was last Friday means there has been ample time to recover as Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova looks to get the better of her compatriot.
It had been a poor start to 2024 for Liudmila Samsonova who lost her first three matches, including a First Round exit at the Australian Open, but she had a solid run in Abu Dhabi.
Like her opponent, Samsonova found Elena Rybakina too hot to handle in that Semi Final in Abu Dhabi before another early exit in Doha last week. However, a solid First Round win in Dubai will have given Liudmila Samsonova a bit more confidence and she will know that her serve can be a massive weapon on relatively quick hard courts.
However, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova can produce some dangerous serving of her own and looks to be playing with a bit more consistency of the two Russians.
Out of the two players, Pavlyuchenkova has been getting slightly more out of the return of serve and that could be key in a match that may come down to the fine margins.
Anna Kalinskaya - 4.5 games v Cristina Bucsa: The run to the Australian Open Quarter Final would have come as a surprise to those outside of Anna Kalinskaya's team. The challenge for the player is backing up that performance and building on reaching a new career high World Ranking, which is why the early defeat in Doha would have been a blow.
She has battled through the Qualifiers to take her place in the main draw in Dubai and Anna Kalinskaya has won all three matches at the tournament without dropping a set.
This will have restored any drop in confidence and the hard court numbers in 2024 continue to impress.
Anna Kalinskaya deserves to be set as the favourite in this Second Round match against Cristina Bucsa who is playing in her third tournament this season as a Lucky Loser. She was beaten in the final Dubai Qualifier by Storm Sanders, but benefits from Ons Jabeur's subsequent withdrawal.
Cristina Bucsa did reach the Abu Dhabi Quarter Final as a Lucky Loser and she will feel this draw gives her a chance of extending her run in this tournament too. However, the Spaniard has not produced the same level as her opponent so far in 2024, especially when not playing the better players on the Tour, while Anna Kalinskaya will have fond memories of beating Bucsa in straight sets in Brisbane in January.
There was a massive edge in favour of the Russian on the return that day, but this match is expected to be closer. Of course it can't really be expected to be as one-sided as when Kalinskaya dropped just two games, but even a closer match is one in which the favourite can win and cover.
As long as Anna Kalinskaya can look after her own serve, the pressure should build on the Cristina Bucsa serve and the World Number 40 can find the breaks she needs to progress with some comfort.
Qinwen Zheng - 5.5 games v Nao Hibino: Any time a player reaches a Grand Slam Final, the target on their back will increase in size and opponents will really try and knock someone from off of their perch.
A 'nothing to lose' kind of approach to those matches can make it tough for the Grand Slam Finalist and especially when it has come unexpectedly.
Qinwen Zheng reached the Final at the Australian Open, but you have to factor in the way the draw opened up for her before she was well beaten in the Final by Aryna Sabalenka. Her performance in Doha was inconsistent to say the least and so it is perhaps a difficult spot in which to trust her to win, never mind cover a spread like this one.
However, Nao Hibino is not playing to the level she once was and she has suffered some one-sided defeats on the hard courts in 2024. Three wins in Dubai will have just given Hibino a boost in confidence to take into this Second Round match against an opponent who received a Bye through to this stage of the tournament, although the World Number 93 will know there is a considerable talent gap to bridge.
The Japanese player has always been comfortable on the hard courts, but she has a vulnerable serve and especially when she has been playing top 50 Ranked opponents over the last twelve months.
You don't always know what you are going to get from the Qinwen Zheng return, but she does have a big serve and that should at least contain some of the threat that Nao Hibino will bring to the court. Nao Hibino's return numbers have been pretty poor against the top players on the Tour over the last twelve months and it will build scoreboard pressure in favour of Zheng.
Over the last twelve months, Qinwen Zheng has won all fourteen hard court matches against players Ranked outside the top 50. The serve has dominated and she has won 47% of the return points played in those matches too.
Covering a spread like this one has been an issue with eight failures in those fourteen wins, but Nao Hibino has struggled to stay competitive within matches so Qinwen Zheng can be backed for a rare big cover here.
Karolina Pliskova - 2.5 games v Ashlyn Krueger: The biggest question about this Second Round match is how well Karolina Pliskova has recovered having played a lot of tennis over the last couple of weeks.
Winning the title in Cluj and then fighting her way through to the Doha Semi Final took its toll on the former World Number 1 and she was not able to compete in that match against Iga Swiatek.
Karolina Pliskova was able to beat veteran Shuai Zhang in the First Round, although that win is not massively impressive considering how long the latter has been out of competitive action. It was a solid, if unspectacular, performance from Karolina Pliskova and she may need to be a bit better when facing Ashlyn Krueger.
Coming from a set down to beat Caroline Garcia and having Monday as a day of rest is a benefit for the American, although it has been a relative struggle to find consistency for the 19 year old. She has put a few wins on the board in 2024, but Ashlyn Krueger knows the majority of those have been in Qualifying Rounds and this is a much tougher test.
None of the matches have been 'easy' though and wins over top 100 Ranked players have been racked up.
That will give Krueger confidence and she has been able to exert some control of matches with her serve. The teenager will need to serve well if Karolina Pliskova is bringing her best form to the court and the feeling is that the Czech player will ultimately have a bit too much know-how at this stage of their respective careers.
Jelena Ostapenko - 5.5 games v Lulu Sun: It looked like the run of beating everyone she has faced but Victoria Azarenka in 2024 might have been under threat when dropping four games in a row to lose the first set.
In previous years this might have ended up seeing Jelena Ostapenko just self-combust, but she has shown decent mental strength to recover and ultimately move through to the Second Round in Dubai without too many issues.
The Latvian will be a big favourite when playing Lulu Sun, the 22 year old from Switzerland who is Ranked outside the top 200 but who has been given a Wild Card into the Dubai tournament. A win over Paula Badosa should be a huge boost for Lulu Sun, even though the match ended prematurely at the end of the first set, while she did Qualify for main draw matches in Auckland and at the Australian Open.
It is still a big leap upwards to face Ostapenko in the form she has been in, while Sun had not been competitive in her two matches against top 100 Ranked opponents before beating Paula Badosa.
In fact she had never beaten a top 100 Ranked opponent on the hard courts prior to the First Round here in Dubai and Lulu Sun had struggled to be very competitive. The first serve has been decent enough, but the second is vulnerable and finding enough quality on the return of serve is something the young player is still trying to develop.
An aggressive player like Jelena Ostapenko is likely going to offer a stern examination of the Lulu Sun game and the feeling is that the World Number 11 will continue her strong form to open this season.
Elina Svitolina - 5.5 games v Tatjana Maria: She reached the Final in Auckland before narrowly losing to Coco Gauff and Elina Svitolina looked to be motoring in another strong Grand Slam effort at the Australian Open.
Three wins in straight sets took the Ukrainian into the Fourth Round in Melbourne, but an unexpected and shocking back issue forced Elina Svitolina to withdraw from that Fourth Round match after just three games had been played.
She has not really been able to explain what happened and Svitolina has spent some time away following the Australian Open, but she was able to produce a strong First Round win on Monday.
Now there is every chance Elina Svitolina can back that up against another veteran Tatjana Maria who has had a difficult start to the season. Her win in the First Round will be a boost, but Maria has suffered some extremely one-sided losses this season and it may be a tough match up for her in this one.
The five losses that Tatjana Maria has suffered this season have been by margins of eleven, seven, six, eleven and ten games- when she has lost, she has lost very, very easily.
The concern for her fans is that Tatjana Maria lost her last two hard court matches against Elina Svitolina in one-sided fashion, albeit the last of those was back in the 2018 US Open. Much has changed for both players in that time, but Elina Svitolina is still playing at a decent level after returning from giving birth and the edge has to be with the higher Ranked player.
Take away the retirement at the Australian Open and Elina Svitolina has won ten straight hard court matches against opponents Ranked outside the top 20. Strong serving has set her on her way and Elina Svitolina can get plenty of joy in the return during this Second Round to produce a strong win.
Adding the Tennis Picks from Rio de Janeiro and Los Cabos with a few thoughts on those.
I do think both Sebastian Baez and Arthur Fils should both be able to cover big spreads- the former has been in decent form on the clay courts, while the latter is confident enough on the surface and taking on a young, inexperienced opponent.
Both of those players are competing in Rio, but in Los Cabos the play is on Marcos Giron to maintain the fine run of form he has been in through the month of February.
Taro Daniel can be dangerous on the hard courts, but Giron is playing well enough to grind him down and cover this relatively big handicap mark.
There are a couple of underdogs that could certainly thrive in the First Round in Los Cabos, but neither Flavio Cobolli nor Nuno Borges convinced me to add them to the selections.
MY PICKS: Leylah Fernandez - 4.5 Games @ 1.90 Bet365 (2 Units)
Marketa Vondrousova - 4.5 Games @ 2.00 Bet365 (2 Units)
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova @ 1.90 Bet365 (2 Units)
Anna Kalinskaya - 4.5 Games @ 1.72 Bet365 (2 Units)
Qinwen Zheng - 5.5 Games @ 1.80 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Karolina Pliskova - 2.5 Games @ 2.00 Paddy Power (2 Units)
Jelena Ostapenko - 5.5 Games @ 1.83 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Elina Svitolina - 5.5 Games @ 1.91 Coral (2 Units)
Elina Svitolina - 5.5 Games @ 1.91 Coral (2 Units)
Sebastian Baez - 4.5 Games @ 1.90 Bet365 (2 Units)
Arthur Fils - 4.5 Games @ 2.00 Paddy Power (2 Units)
Marcos Giron - 3.5 Games @ 1.90 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Week Update: 5-4, + 0.84 Units (18 Units Staked, + 4.67% Yield)
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