Elina Svitolina – Jessica Pegula. Prediction and announcement for the Australian Open match

In the evening from Sunday to Monday, Ukraine’s first racket Elina Svitolina (No. 5 WTA) will play a match of the fourth round of the main draw of the Australian Open tennis championship. The Ukrainian’s rival will be American Jessica Pegula (No. 61 WTA). The match will start at 02:00 Kiev time.

Winning this match should bring one of the players around $ 159,000 in prize money and 190 points in the WTA ranking, in addition to the $ 248,000 already earned. Svitolina has gained 110 rating points so far, beating last year’s result by one lap, her rival added 230 points to her asset, since she lost in the first round in 2020.

Rival

Pegula is not very famous for her successes in the tennis world, although she is the same age as Svitolina. Right now Jessica is celebrating the best Grand Slam tournament of her career, previously she didn’t get past the third round (US Open-2020). He played three times in the finals of the WTA 250 tournaments (formerly WTA International), in 2019 he won the only title in Washington.

Until 2019, Pegula did not make it to the TBS base, except for the house, but recently she began to make rapid progress. Since last year’s tournament in New York (transferred from Cincinnati), only five players have ever beaten the American: Mertens, Kvitova, Sobolenko, Svitolina and Kenin. A solid company, right? At the same time, 12 wins were scored, including two over the top 20 representatives.

But the most interesting is Pegula’s personal life. Jessica is the daughter of billionaire Terrence Pegula, owner of several sports teams in Buffalo, New York. But Terrence is a “healthy billionaire person,” so he doesn’t spoil his daughter too much. For example, Jessica does not have a personal plane, although she has the opportunity to train with the best specialists. Right now, former Venus Williams coach David Witt, who worked with Williams Sr. for 11 years, is working with her.

Tournament route

Tournament statistics

	Svitolina	Pegula
matches	3	3
average rating of opponents	42	59
average game time	1:33	1:12
seconds spent at a point	42	42
points earned with service,%	62.2	66.0
ace / game	0.14	0.24
double faults / game	0.09	0.04
% of the first feeding	58.7	58.2
points earned with the first serve,%	68.9	69.7
points won with second serve,%	52.7	60.1
points earned at the reception,%	40.5	44.7
implemented breakpoints,%	47.6	69.6
Grid / game outputs	0.96	0.76
points earned on the network,%	61.8	81.6
winners / game	1.12	1.3
unforced errors / game	1.19	0.9

Prospects in the ranking

After the departure of several tennis players from the end of the top ten, the situation for Elina became calmer. At the moment, only Serena Williams can avoid it, who needs to at least reach the final. Considering Williams Jr.’s upcoming matches against Simona Halep and possibly Naomi Osaka, it won’t be easy.

At the same time, Svitolina needs to reach the semifinals to progress in the rankings. In this case, Elina will become fourth, ahead of Sofia Kenin. It is impossible to beat third place even in theory, and it will only be a miracle to move Naomi Osaka from third place. More details in the table.

Forecast

Svitolina met Pegula in the first match of a recent tournament in Abu Dhabi. Even then, it became clear that the American is not an easy opponent and has a certain level of stability and skill. And yet so far in the tournament, he was very lucky on the grid. In the first round, Victoria Azarenka was captured, who had served a strict quarantine, who was even called a doctor during the match. Then there were Samantha Stosur and Kiki Mladenovic. The best times of the first are over, the second has recently performed much better in pairs (the current tournament champion, by the way). This year, the Frenchwoman set a trap for her partner and decided to focus on a solo. As a result, he won more than potential to reach the doubles final.

But Svitolina is still happy. Her opposition was much more dangerous and the Ukrainian did not yield a single party. Before the round of 16 matches, the experts calculated that it was Elina who had the most suitable grid to fight for the title. But to achieve even the closest result, you must play at least no worse than before. Pegula Elina can do it, we have already seen it, in the second round everything will depend on the Ukrainian herself.

Prediction: Svitolina win in two sets