Onto the second round at the US Open, as the matches continue to come at a furious pace, albeit a more manageable one.
Here are my bets for Zheng vs Andreeva and Alexandrova vs Jovic in my Wednesday US Open predictions from the women's draw.
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US Open Picks for Wednesday
Qinwen Zheng (-550) vs Erika Andreeva (+370)
12:15 p.m. ET
After going from Europe to North America, back to China and then returning for the US Open, Zheng can be excused for a really poor start in her opening match against Amanda Anisimova. From the latter stages of the first set onwards, she was the better player.
Equipped with a huge serve and bullying groundstrokes, the Olympic gold medalist has the ability to take it to just about anyone on the women's tour. She still lacks patience and the ability to recognize when to play with less pace and slow things down, but the raw talent is as good as almost anyone in the women's game.
The elder of the Andreeva sister is what I'd consider to be the polar opposite. She has very little power and is almost entirely reliant on opponent errors to succeed. It's all hustle and consistency.
Zheng did struggle with Elina Avanesyan at the French Open, but I think Avanesyan had a bit more on her serve and certainly a stronger backhand to rush Zheng into making mistakes. The big difference here is that Andreeva doesn't have anything to take time away from Zheng and on hard courts it'll be much tougher to track down her powerful groundstrokes and prolong rallies as it would be on the dirt.
I have this one being a routine victory for the world No. 7.
Picks: Zheng -4.5 games (-135 via PointsBet) | Under 20.5 games (-120 via DraftKings)
Ekaterina Alexandrova (-278) vs Iva Jovic (+215)
1 p.m. ET
I have to back the favorite to get off the court in a hurry in this matchup as well. There are a lot of reasons to like Alexandrova, even at this number.
First, there's the obvious experience and talent gap against a young, promising player, but one that is incredibly underpowered relative to someone like Alexandrova who can compete with the best in the women's game.
The second is the fact that Jovic came through against Magda Linette, who can inject a bit of pace into her groundstrokes, but certainly doesn't have the raw power to hit through the rigid defending of the American teen. Alexandrova does possess that type of power and should be finding a lot of balls that sit up and afford her a lot of time to get set and hammer them back.
Finally, Alexandrova is coming off a first round match against another "pusher" type player in Viktoriya Tomova. She had her issues, but Tomova is a tour-tested player and has more to her game than Jovic at this stage. Even still, a 6-0 second set allowed Alexandrova to cover the spread. Those lopsided sets are always in play for her against underpowered opposition like this.
There's no reason to doubt the powerful hard courter heading into this contest.
Pick: Alexandrova -4.5 games (+108 via BetRivers)
