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Luxemburg Quarter Finals – 17 September 2021

Damien Kayat previews the WTA International Luxemburg Open, Quarter Finals.

Damien Kayat previews the WTA International Luxemburg Open, Quarter Finals.

 
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2021 WTA Tour

WTA International

Luxembourg Open

Kockelscheuer Sports Centre (Hard Indoors)

Selected Quarterfinals- 17th September

Belinda Bencic (1) (38/100) vs Liudmila Samsonova (7) (39/20)

Belinda Bencic will be targeting this event with a sense of unfinished business after losing in the 2018 final to Julia Gorges.  The Swiss number one seed has actually enjoyed a fairy-tale end-of-year run.  Obviously, the gold medal in Tokyo was a career highlight.  But she also reached back-to-back quarterfinals in Cincinnati and the US Open.  Her first-round victory this week against Diyas took her recent form figures to 14-2.  She had largely underperformed on the bigger stage prior to the Olympic games, Bencic has still managed to reach two WTA Tour finals earlier this season (she lost in Adelaide and Berlin).  It seems as if the crafty Swiss star is finally starting to string together some consistency in a career blighted by injuries.  Will she finally end her two-year WTA title drought this week (the Olympics notwithstanding)? 

22-year-old Liudmila Samsonova is a player who has steadily progressed over the past 18 months.  Strangely enough, the Russian actually represented Italy between 2014 and 2018.  Regardless of heritage, this has been a year of real progression for the former ITF stalwart.  Samsonova has formerly won four singles titles on the ITF Tour.  But this year her season absolutely exploded on grass.  She went on a giant-killing run at the WTA 500 event in Berlin, defeating Victoria Azarenka and grass-court specialist Madison Keys en route to the final.  Then she overcame Belinda Bencic (!) in a tight three-set thriller in the final.  Yes, the Russian has already conquered the Swiss star this season.  She then followed that up with a breakthrough 4th round run at Wimbledon.  Things have gone off the boil somewhat since that glorious grass-court stretch.  But she is yet to drop a set this week and will look to force Bencic into submission with her power. 

As I noted earlier, the Russian won a titanic encounter earlier this season in Berlin.  She actually overpowered Bencic in the final two sets.  But can she carry that momentum over onto these indoor hardcourts?  I actually think that there’s value in the Samsonova upset.  Bencic has played a massive amount of tennis of late and Samsonova can draw on that victory from earlier this season.

Marketa Vondrousova (5) (8/10) vs Elise Mertens (2) (99/100)

2019 French Open finalist Marketa Vondrousova has navigated her draw this week with aplomb.  Yet to come close to dropping a set this week, the Czech World Number 35 will be aiming to win her first title in four years.  The career of Vondrousova has more than a touch of the Ostapenko about it.  Long vacuums of barren form will occasionally be interrupted by stunning performances.  This year has been no exception.  She started the year in pretty encouraging form, reaching the semi-finals of the Yarra Valley Classic before a highly creditable 4th round run in Melbourne.  But the lefty’s form really capitulated during both the clay and grass-court swings.  Few paid her any mind going into the Tokyo Olympics.  But the Czech dazzled on those hardcourts, beating the likes of Naomi Osaka and Elina Svitolina en route to an astonishing Silver Medal (incidentally, she may get a chance for revenge this year with Gold Medal winner Belinda Bencic bossing the top half of the draw). 

Elise Mertens kicked off her Luxembourg Open campaign with a rather tricksy encounter against the underachieving Aliaksandra Sasnovich.  In fact, the Belgian had lost three of their four previous encounters.  And things started pretty ominously for Mertens, dropping the first set once again against the Belarusian.  But the baseliner fought back despite not having her top game in that match.  Mertens has actually accumulated a strong year in and around an unfortunate mid-season thigh injury.  She started the year brilliantly, winning the Gippsland title before a runner-up finish in Istanbul and a semi-final run in Dubai.  The thigh injury intervened but she manged to return to the US Open Series with gusto, reaching the semi-finals in San Jose prior to a round of 16 run in New York.  I view Mertens in the same light as David Goffin from the men’s tour.  She may not quite have the firepower or consistency to bother Grand Slams on a regular basis.  But she is a fierce competitor who will punish any weaknesses in these slightly less glamorous events. 

While it is Mertens who leads the head-to-head 2-1, Vondrousova won their only ever hardcourt encounter during the 2019 Miami Open.  These two have remarkably comparable hardcourt records in 2021: Mertens is 19-8 on hardcourts while Vondrousova is 17-9.  Ultimately, I have to go for Vondrousova.  Given her rollercoaster form, I think she is due a deep tournament run.

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