WTA Linz - Bashers gonna bash

Outrights marching on

We can look back on another promising day for our outright picks as Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Oceane Dodin both came back from a set down against Jana Fett resp. Jil Teichmann while Ekaterina Alexandrova recorded a pretty straightforward win against compatriot Varvara Gracheva. The two top seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Elise Mertens are still in the draw as well. The Belgian had a difficult start to the tournament as she lost the first set 2-6 to Anhelina Kalinina before taking over eventually. Sabalenka, not to our satisfaction, also came back from an early 1-4 deficit when she beat Jasmine Paolini 6-4 6-4 on Tuesday.

Same strategy, different outcome?

Today, the top seed takes on Stefanie Voegele who beat the totally out of form Viktoria Kuzmova 7-6 6-3. However, I was pretty impressed, especially with her serving performance. The Swiss won 39/44 on first serve points and served her way out of trouble in key moments. If she can somehow replicate that, a closer affair than books anticipate could await for a (even on a high level) still inconsistent Sabalenka, whose win against Paolini was not enough to convince me otherwise. In my outright preview, I mentioned that Voegele was capable to go on a little run here and I still think so. The odds are similar to the ones in Sabalenka-Paolini and I'm going for the same strategy here again, putting in a trifecta of bets with a total stake of one unit.

In the first match scheduled on Centre Court, Nadia Podoroska takes on Camila Giorgi. While the Italian won this event in 2018, Podoroska is the #6 seed this year and I gotta say she surprised me a bit in her first match on the surface after more than four years. Begu did nothing special, but Podoroska really seems to establish herself on tour and showed a rock solid performance once again. Her point construction is excellent and she knows exactly when to pull the trigger.

Against a Camila Giorgi that, just as the likes of Sabalenka, can redline for a set and then completely disappear, I like Podoroska's solid game to keep this close. This might become a similar match to Giorgi's first round against Sara Sorribes Tormo and I think we could see three sets again with the Italian dominating for a while and then losing a bit of her accuracy which Podoroska should be able to punish. The odds on over 2.5 sets are 2.37 and I put another half unit on that, adding to the Voegele trifecta.