Out of form Croatian star Donna Vekic will hope to turn things around when she tees off against Wang Yafan in the first round of the 2021 Australian Open on Monday, February 8. The match is likely to begin at around 10 am local time (11 pm BST or 6 pm Eastern Time previous day). Get the live streaming options of this Donna Vekic v Wang Yafan match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Donna Vekic v Wang Yafan Head to Head
Their only previous meeting came in the 2019 Acapulco Open semifinal and Yafan defeated Vekic en route her first and only WTA title.
Also Read:
Vekic on a Six-Match Losing Streak
Not so long ago, Vekic was ranked 19th in the world, with an aim to break into the top 10 at some point. She had the form going for her as she rode into the season-end of 2019 and the hope was that a couple of deep Grand Slams would be enough to help her achieve that dream.
The season of 2020 brought different things to different players with a lot of them being not so positive because of the pandemic. For Vekic, it has been a test of patience, as her form fell away and so has been her ranking. Other than a third round appearance at the Australian Open last year, her only other competition in which she came away with her head held slightly higher than the rest was the US Open where again, she won the first two rounds.
Unfortunately for her, the third round defeat in Flushing Meadows last season was followed by three more first round losses – at Rome, Paris and Ostrava – and if she thought the bleeding would stop with the start of the new season, she was wrong.
This season has already seen Vekic crash out in the first matches of two tournaments – at Abu Dhabi to Bernarda Pera and Tsvetana Pironkova in Melbourne. That makes it six defeats without a win and with her confidence shot that badly, she will have to dig really deep to try and come out of this rut.
In a bid to do that, she has been helped by the draw which pits her against an opponent undergoing through a similar issue.
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Yafan Has Three Wins Since Start of 2020
One of the issues for Yafan is she didn’t play any tennis in 2020 following the pandemic break. In essence the only tennis she had seen were the six tournaments in the January-March period last year and the Chinese world number 96 won just three matches.
Four of the tournaments resulted in first round defeats for Yafan before she managed a quarterfinal appearance at the Monterrey Open, the last competition she participated in 2020.
The new year, 2021, hasn’t seen any change in fortunes for Yafan. Despite having fallen in the rankings, she started off as a favourite at the first round of the Abu Dhabi Open against Kateryna Bondarenko but lost in three sets.
And then again in Melbourne, she fell away to a three-set loss in her first round match tie against Kajal Juvan.
Much like her opponent here, Yafan hasn’t had too much confidence-boosting results and it could get interesting when two struggling players face each other in a tournament opener.
Vekic v Yafan Prediction and Tip
Vekic is 4/11 to win this but to be honest it depends on who makes the lesser of the errors on the given day. Happy to go with the games market on this.
Tip: Over 20.5 games in the match: 5/6 (bet365)
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The 2021 Australian Open will be played from February 8 to 21. You can watch & bet on the these matches here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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