The WTA Tour moves on to Romania, where a hard-court event in Cluj-Napoca is set to begin.
I’ve found value on two matches on Monday's order of play.
Read on for my odds analysis and prediction!
Note: Match times are subject to change. Read here for tips on viewing tennis matches and seeing tennis odds.
Ysaline Bonaventure (-225) vs. Varvara Gracheva (+182)
5 a.m. ET
Ysaline Bonaventure did well to qualify for Cluj-Napoca, defeating Cristina Dinu 6-4, 7-5 in the final qualifying round. Bonaventure won 39% of her first-serve returns and 50% of her second-serve returns, breaking Dinu's serve on four occasions. Bonaventure only got broken twice on her own serve.
She has won six of her last seven matches overall, including victories over current top-40 players in Shelby Rogers and Jil Teichmann on the hard courts of Tallinn. Bonaventure is now 25-11 on hard courts this season and 42-24 overall. She has a heavy lefty forehand that she manipulates around the court into precise targets and she is solid from the baseline.
Varavara Gracheva is in the midst of a disastrous stretch, losing 13 of her last 15 matches overall across clay and hard courts. In her latest 1-6, 0-6 defeat to Veronika Kudermetova last week on the hard courts of Monastir, Gracheva won just 32% of her return points, 35% of her service points and was broken six times.
Gracheva is now just 10-12 on hard for the year, failing to capitalize on her momentum from earlier this season. she has lost her rally tolerance and struggles to keep control of her groundstrokes when trying to inject pace into rallies.
Bonaventure comes into this match with confidence, having done a lot of winning recently and is already used to the court conditions in Cluj-Napoca. Gracheva, on the other hand, has been a disaster recently and hasn't even won a set in her last three matches. Her confidence is very low.
The Belgian will work the ball around the court without overhitting often. Gracheva is much less stable with her groundstrokes right now and I don't trust her backhand to hold up when Bonaventure peppers her heavy lefty forehand to that wing.
I also don't trust Gracheva to effectively target Bonaventure's slightly-weaker backhand, given how erratic she has been recently.
Pick: Bonaventure -3.5 Games (-118 via FanDuel)
Dayana Yastremska (-136) vs. Tamara Korpatsch(+112)
6:15 a.m. ET
Dayana Yastremska has had major struggles recently, falling in her last eight matches, with her last victory occurring on grass in June. In her most recent match a few weeks ago, Yastremska retired down 2-6, 3-5 to Emma Raducanu in Portoroz. The Ukrainian won just 47% of her service points in that match.
It's been a very tough stretch for Yastremska, who has dropped to 19-21 on the season overall, including a 12-13 record on hard courts. When she's playing well, Yastremska can serve huge and overpower her opposition with massive groundstrokes. However, Yastremska has been wild from the baseline, pressing from the baseline way too often.
Tamara Korpatsch snuck into the main draw as a lucky loser, despite falling 4-6, 5-7 to Elina Avanesyan in the final qualifying round. She only won 46% of her service points against Avanesyan, which includes 39% of her second serves won.
While Korpatsch is 35-21 in 2022 as a whole, she's just 8-7 on hard courts, with much of her success on clay. She moves well and hits with consistent depth from the baseline, but Korpatsch doesn't have the power to consistently win on hard courts and struggles to be the aggressor in rallies.
This feels like a great bounce-back spot for Yastremska. Korpatsch doesn't defend as well on hard courts as she does on clay, so less balls will come back for Yastremska. She will have to press less often against Korpatsch on hard courts compared to facing her on clay.
While Yastremska's overall Elo ratings is 38.2 points better than Korpatsch's, her hard-court Elo is 169 points better than the German's.
Pick: Yastremska ML (-136 via FanDuel)
