World number 13 Victoria Azarenka will hope to continue showing the form that on was display late last year when she takes on Yulia Putintseva in the 2021 WTA Gippsland Trophy second round on Friday, February 5. Find all the live streaming options for Victoria Azarenka v Yulia Putintseva match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Victoria Azarenka v Yulia Putintseva Head to Head
In the past there has been no match-ups between Azarenka and Putintseva, a first time encounter between these two.
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Azarenka Finally Gets Going
After an eventful previous season, Azarenka hadn’t played any tennis for the period between the Ostrava Open final and here in 2021, opting to give the Abu Dhabi Open a miss. At the same time Azarenka was one of the players on that flight which saw a few positive tests of coronavirus, which meant she was forced into a hard quarantine much the other players participating in this tournament.
A first round bye has meant Azarenka would have to wait till about four days before the start of the Australian Open to get her Australian Summer campaign going but if the finish to her previous season is anything to go by, she shouldn’t be too worried.
After all, after having missed nearly the entire first seven months of the season, partly because of her fitness and obviously because of the pandemic, Azarenka followed up a first round defeat the Lexington Open with three appearances in the finals of tournaments – at the Cincinnati Open which she won when Naomi Osaka withdrew and the runner-up trophies from the US Open and in Ostrava.
She starts things off here against a doughty world number 28 who has herself shown some excellent form in recent times.
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Putintseva Puts Quarantine Behind
She was one of the many who had to be hard-quarantined and wasn’t allowed to practice in Melbourne but Putintseva was among the most vocal. Not too many can blame her though – after all, what do you do when as an elite athlete you are nearly locked up in a hotel room and have rats for company.
That said, the advantage she does have over Azarenka is she has not only played in a first round match here, beating Georgina Garcia-Perez 7-6 (1), 6-4 to set up this second round meeting with the Belarusian, Putintseva had also featured in the Abu Dhabi Open.
With wins over Martina Trevisan and Barbora Krejcikova in the first two rounds there, she made it to the third where she nearly gave Sofia Kenin a scare before losing in three.
And while she would have liked to do better than than that scratchy opening round win over a player ranked 191st in the world, the Kazakh will also be relieved to have put all her quarantine worries behind her and be playing tennis.
Azarenka v Putintseva Prediction and Tip
On paper, Azarenka starts off a favourite with 2/5 for her win but we wouldn’t discount someone like Putintseva, especially against a player who will be playing in her first match since October 2020. Putintseva to win at least a set.
Tip: Putintseva to win a set – Yes: 4/6 (bet365)
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The 2021 WTA Grampians Trophy in Melbourne will be played from February 3. You can watch & bet on the these matches here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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