Fifth seeded Petra Kvitova and sixth seeded Kiki Bertens will be in action for their second round matches at the 2020 Brisbane International on Thursday, January 9. Get the latest Petra Kvitova v Liudmila Samsonova & Kiki Bertens v Anett Kontaveit tips, previews and live streams below for these second round matches.
- Get the best odds for the Brisbane International 2020 with bet365 here.
- Also watch the Brisbane International 2020 live streaming here
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Petra Kvitova v Liudmila Samsonova Predictions & Preview
The fifth seeded Czech Kvitova faces Luidmila Samsonova of Russia in their second round match to be played on Thursday in Brisbane. And it’s a surprise match-up given the wide disparity in the player rankings, with Kvitova currently seventh in the world and Samsonva having never even broken into the top 120.
And Samsonova would be supremely proud of her showing so far having already won four matches in a row to make it this far. That includes a qualifying win over Kristina Mladenovic and then a shock upset victory over Sloane Stephens in round one of the tournament. Now comes a very big challenge in the form of Kvitova, who incidentally was knocked out by Anett Kontaveit at this very stage of this competition last season.
Kvitova, a losing finalist at last year’s Australian Open, also won a couple of titles last seasons. This included one in Sydney before the first major but then had bit of a lull in the proceedings. There was a final at Dubai, where she lost to Belinda Bencic and then she went on to clinch the Stuttgart Open but nothing much happened after that. In fact, Kvitova made just one other semifinal, at Wuhan, throughout the season and her ranking fell to the seventh in the world.
Her underwhelming form saw her lose all her three matches at the WTA Finals, ending a season in a struggle after it had started off with a bang. She had a sluggish start against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova as she lost the first set in her opener here but came back strongly to win 6-1, 6-0 and complete the victory.
Tip: Over 19.5 games in the match: 10/11 (Click here to get these odds with Unibet)
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Kiki Bertens v Anett Kontaveit Predictions & Preview
World number nine Kiki Bertens will be up against Estonia’s 26th-ranked Anett Kontaveit in their second round match in Brisbane. Bertens holds a 2-1 advantage over Kontaveit, but the matches she has won have both gone to a third set. This includes a title-decider match in Gstaad in 2017 and a second round win in Cincinnati a year later.
Kontaveit’s win over Bertens came at the 2016 New Haven Open where she won that first round match in straight sets.
Bertens has had a couple of brilliant seasons coming into this one. A 46-23 win-loss in 2018 was followed by 55-26 in 2019, and a total of five tournament wins in these two years. And what makes things even better is Bertens has won those five across three different surfaces; clay, hard and indoor.
Her problems were restricted to Grand Slam tennis though as Bertens failed to make it past the third round in any of the competitions. It’s probably a matter of time before she changes that but what that also means is in low-pressure competitions like the Brisbane International, it might be getting any easier for her opponents.
Kontaveit, was a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Su-Wei Hsieh, hadn’t played since withdrawing from her third round match at the US Open last year. She had suffered a viral illness there but showed no signs of any fitness concerns in the first round rout of her opponent. Still, Bertens should scoop this one.
Tip: Bertens to win: 4/5 (Click here to get these odds with Unibet)