Friday 4 April 2014

2014 Charleston - Quarterfinals

I had quite a bad day yesterday in my predictions, although I am still quite surprised by Petkovic's result. (Maybe she can get back into the top 10? :D) In another note, the bottom half still has much better match ups, so that's what I'll be reviewing. So here's today's predictions:

[9] Lucie Safarova vs. [14] Andrea Petkovic
I think that Petkovic played an amazing match yesterday, with or without Lisicki's numerous unforced errors. Safarova played a typically more streaky match against Stosur yesterday and the fact that Stosur finally managed to take a set off Safarova in 6 meetings is probably an indication that she hasn't fully adjusted to the clay yet. Petkovic has improved greatly on the clay so far, and if she can really attack Safarova from the beginning, she will have a great chance, considering Petkovic's 3-0 record when winning the first set, and Safarova's 1-2 record in Charleston this year of winning the first set. 



Prediction: Andrea Petkovic

[2] Jelena Jankovic vs. [6] Eugenie Bouchard
Bouchard played an amazing match against Williams yesterday, defending well when she needed it and overall keeping her unforced errors low, whilst still managing to hit some more weighty shots when needed. Jankovic, on the other hand, has played extremely well, quietly knocking out opponents whilst the  'big' names fell, such as the Williams sisters, Lisicki and home crowd favourites such as Keys and Stephens. I think that while there is all this hype about Bouchard, she has never really 'proven' herself so to speak, at the pointy end of things, and she hasn't really been able to defeat top 20 players, with her current record at 5 -14 with only 2 of those against top 10 players: 2013 Tokyo against Jankovic (#10) and against Errani last week (#10), who fell out of the top 10 immediately afterwards. Whilst I'm not discounting her defeat of Jankovic last year, Bouchard hadn't beat a top 9 ranked player and I don't see her getting past Jankovic's consistency and effective shot making this time.


Prediction: Jelena Jankovic 

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