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On Friday, September 18, Ukraine’s first racket Elina Svitolina (No. 6 WTA) will play the round of 16 duel at the Premier 5 series clay tournament in Rome. In the third round match, the Ukrainian will face two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia (No. 38 WTA). The match will take place on the first pitch of the afternoon session. not before 20:00 Kiev time.
Winning this match should bring one of the players € 18,555 in prizes and 85 points in the WTA ranking, in addition to the € 19,355 and 105 points already earned. Last year, tennis players did not score points in this tournament, so even under the new rules they are already in the black.
Rival
Kuznetsova is an expert in playing on clay, from a young age she trained in Spain, where she developed as a successful athlete. She won her first “Helmet” 16 years ago on the US Open courts, and just under 5 years later she managed to conquer Roland Garros. In this interval, there were still two finals in the same Majors. Now the Russian woman is 35 years old, but she continues to perform successfully, sometimes showing very good results.
True, for the last two years it has been a bit more difficult to do this, the former world’s second racket missed the start of the 2019 season due to hand and knee injuries, after which it gained momentum for a long time. . She fully managed to return to Cincinnati, where last year she lost in the final to the Americans Madison Keys. This season, her biggest success was reaching the semi-finals in the Qatari premiere with the defeat of future champion Arina Sobolenko.
WTA. Svetlana Kuznetsova
The Russian started unsuccessfully after the resumption of the season, losing to Canadian Bouchard, who decided to remember that she was still a tennis player, reaching the final of the Istanbul competition. The match was three sets and the most experienced athlete ran out of fuel earlier.
Tournament route
Kuznetsova in the first circles of Rome outplayed two attacking tennis players, who can not be called fans of slow liners, twice the Russian woman managed to pressure her opponents after losing the first game.
Matches between them
The girls have played four times before (all hard), Svitolina won three times. The only loss came in Moscow at the infamous 2016 Kremlin Cup, where Elina was threatened before the semi-final match against the Russian. The Ukrainian then lost, fought with the organizers and did not play in this tournament for two years. Although his decision to break this tradition last year raised even more questions. The remaining three head-to-head matches ended with the Ukrainian confident victories in straight sets.
Forecast
Stylistically, Kuznetsova is quite a convenient opponent for a Ukrainian. He does not have a strong serve and advantage in hitting power, and the best years of the Russian are already behind him. But there is tremendous experience and an advantage in the technical arsenal of a clay game. She defeated her previous rivals due to competent tactics, gradually depleting and leveling off her advantage in power. It will be extremely difficult to do something like that with Svitolina if Elina is well tuned for this fight. In the first match, the Ukrainian had some problems with the serve, I would very much like this component to improve gradually.
Prediction: Svitolina win in two sets
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