The third round matches at the 2019 China Open will be played on Wednesday, October 2 and Elina Svitolina and Petra Kvitova will lead the draw today. Here’s Elina Svitolina v Sofia Kenin and Petra Kvitova v Belinda Bencic tips, previews and predictions along with a couple of other matches.
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Elina Svitolina v Sofia Kenin Predictions & Preview
World number three Elina Svitolina takes on in-form 16th-ranked Sofia Kenin in a lip-smacking third round match at the WTA China Open on Wednesday. This will also be their fourth match against each other with Kenin a surprise 2-1 leader on head to head; all three matches having been played this year and more importantly on hard court surfaces.
The first time they faced off was in Indian Wells, and Svitolina had needed three sets to get past Kenin in that second round match. Svitolina was the losing semi-finalist in that competition. This was followed by two wins for Kenin in a span of a week, defeating Svitolina at Toronto and Cincinnati to reach the semi-finals at both events.
Even more interestingly, both those were straight-set wins for Kenin, an indicator of the level that the American is currently playing. Another indicator of those levels comes in the form of the odds on offer – Kenin being a favourite to win this one despite being ranked 13 places below Svitolina.
She is 5/6 to beat her opponent at the time of writing, as opposed to 15/13 for a Svitolina win. A three-setter classic looks likely too, so we could be looking at a Kenin win in three sets.
Tip: Kenin to win in three sets: 16/5 with Unibet
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Petra Kvitova v Belinda Bencic Predictions & Preview
This is another interesting match-up between world numbers 7 and 10, with Petra Kvitova trying to regain some of her form from the start of the season and Bencic showing tremendous results. In four previous matches, Kvitova leads 3-1 but the last time they faced off was earlier this year in Dubai and Bencic won the final against the Czech in three sets.
Bencic has already had a couple of testing encounters that she has come through. First she overcame Hsieh su-Wei in straight sets and then edged out Venus Williams in a battle of grit and nerves that went to 7-5 in the third. Kvitova had an opening round bye before she rolled past Kristina Mladenovic in the second. This, however, will be a different kettle of fish as she looks to overturn that last result in Dubai.
Kvitova has won a couple of titles this year including the Sydney International and Stuttgart while having made the final at the Australian Open and Dubai. However, her best performance since April this year was semi-final at Wuhan where she lost to Alison Riske.
Can she push on further or will Bencic, a US Open semi-finalist, prove to be a big speed bump for Kvitova?
Tip: Games Handicap Belinda Bencic +4.5: 8/13 with Unibet
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Caroline Wozniacki v Katerina Siniakova Predictions & Preview
Between 2016 and 2018, Caroline Wozniacki and Katerina Siniakova played each other four times and the Dane won three of those encounters. All her wins came on hard court while the only defeat was on clay. Which is why it should come as no surprise that Wozniacki starts off as a favourite to win this by some distance – offer of 18/35 for her to make it to the quarter-finals.
As we had said earlier, given Wozniacki’s form in recent times, it’s tough to back to win so many matches in a row. In fact this season, the Dane has won three matches in a row on just one previous occasion, and that was on clay where she went on to make the final at the Charleston Open.
The good news for her is that her opponent Siniakova has had obvious issues on hard court all her career so far. She has a Shenzhen Open win under her belt in 2017 but that aside, an 11-14 win-loss record this year makes for an underwhelming reading.
Tip: Three sets in the match: 15/8 with Unibet
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Ekaterina Alexandrova v Daria Kasatkina Predictions & Preview
Russians Ekaterina Alexandrova and Daria Kasatkina will be fighting for a place in the quarter-final in what could turn out to be a humdinger. Alexandrova, who is currently on her career-best WTA ranking of 38th in the world, has never played the 45th-ranked Kasatkina before this, but possesses a stupendous record on hard courts this year.
She has won 16 of her 27 matches, and this includes a semifinals appearance at the Seoul Open last month. And with a win over Simona Halep in the second round of the tournament here, the confidence would be touching sky-high.
Kasatkina, on the other hand, will just be relieved to be here. Since the start of the US Open series and leading into this tournament in Beijing, she was 3-6 on win-loss on hard court surfaces. A four-match losing streak was finally ended in the first round here when she overcame Shuai Peng in three sets before stunning Aryna Sabalenka in the second.
In terms of odds, there’s not much to separate them, with Alexandrova at 4/5 to win this as compared to Kasatkina’s 6/5 but the former has shown enough this year to consider her a favourite for us too.
Tip: Alexandrova to win: 4/5 with Unibet
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