World number one Ash Barty will face the Latvian challenge of Jelena Ostapenko in the third round of the 2021 Miami Open on Saturday, March 27. Get the live streaming options of this Ash Barty v Jelena Ostapenko match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Ash Barty v Jelena Ostapenko Head to Head
There have been three previous meetings between Barty and Ostapenko before this. Barty leads 2-1 with their latest meeting having come in 2019 in Sydney that the Aussie came through 6-3, 6-3.
Ostapenko’s only win over Barty came in the qualifiers of the 2017 Rome Open.
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Barty in a Stiff Battle with Kucova
Like a few of those we know, we expected Barty to come through to the third round here in Miami easily against the little-known Kristina Kucova. That she almost lost, needing a big comeback to make it to the next stage easily became one of the tennis stories of the day.
After Barty had endured and overcome an early break of serve and dished out two of her own in the opening set, the match looked to be moving according to script. More so when she broke yet again to kick-start the second set.
Kucova fought back, breaking the world number one in the very next game and then took advantage of the one opportunity Barty gave at 4-5 to level the match. And when Barty dropped her serve yet again to fall 1-4 and 2-5 behind, it looked like the defending champion was on her way out.
Barty overcame a match-point on Kucova’s serve at 3-5, breaking her back in that game and then repeated the dose at 5-5 before overcoming three break-points to win the match.
With this win, Barty also avoided losing her third match on the bounce, having fallen in the Australian Open quarterfinal and the opening round of the Adelaide International as well.
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Ostapenko Stretched to Three Again
For the second round in a row in this tournament, Ostapenko has gone into her match as an overwhelming favourite. And for the second time she has had to endure a three-setter, before easing through the final set and advancing.
Following a win over Xiyu Wang in the first round, Ostapenko required three sets to get past Kirsten Flipkens, with the match lasting a tick over two hours.
Ostapenko was off to a flier when she broke her opponent twice to race off to a 4-0 lead in the first set and wrapped it up quickly to take the lead. And while she was broken in the second set, the Latvian came back to level things out at 3-3.
The set went on serve till 6-5 when Ostapenko’s serve fell, with Flipkens converting the second break-point of the game to win the set. Fortunately for Ostapenko, that’s when her opponent’s resistance ended as a couple of breaks of serves followed soon after and she quickly wrapped it up in the final set.
It was Ostapenko’s better serving, which saw her get 69% of her first serves in and win 74% of those points that helped her through in the end. Against Barty, she would hope for something similar.
Barty v Ostapenko Prediction and Tip
Barty isn’t as short for this as one would have thought given the kind of rut she has hit recently for a world number one. We think she should come through but it would be worth observing her for this and opt to go for the games market instead.
Tip: Over 20.5 games in the match: 5/6 (bet365)
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The 2021 Miami Open will be played from March 22 to April 4. You can watch & bet on these matches here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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