The 2019 WTA Tour continues with the Italian Open taking place in Roma on Wednesday the 15th of May 2019. Check out our full betting preview below.
WTA Tour 2019 | Internazionali BNL d’Italia
Italian Open | WTA Premier 5
Foco Italico | Outdoor Clay, Rome, Italy
Selected 2nd Round Matches | 15 May 2019
Naomi Osaka (4/10)
vs Dominkia Cibulkova (7/4)
Naomi Osaka is perhaps one of the most enigmatic leading figures in women’s sport. She is notoriously mercurial and perhaps tends to share too much of her internal dilemmas with the media. Her split from coach Sasha Bajin has certainly brought with it some turbulence. One would think that two consecutive Grand Slams would negate any lingering issues. Since Melbourne, she has been most erratic, especially poor in during the ‘Sunshine Double’ leg of the tour. The clay-court season seems to have refocused her to some degree, with a semi-final showing followed by a quarter-final result in Madrid. That’s rather ironic when you consider that the harder services are far more suited to her corrosive baseline talents. Osaka will be the clear favourite in this match but her inherent unpredictability always makes things interesting.
Slovakian pro, Dominika Cibulkova, is a wizened veteran on tour and has a wealth of experience at her disposal. But it’s probably safe to say that her days of consistently competing at the top level are likely over. That is reflected in an extremely disappointing 2019 campaign thus far. Her season win/loss stats of 4/7 don’t do justice to the talent at her disposal. She has eight ATP titles to her name and has some strong history at Roland Garros. She reached the semi-final in 2009 and the quarter-final in 2012. Her aggressive style and renowned racquet-head speed have made her one of the most dangerous players from the back of the court for some time. Cibulkova is just the type of player that the top seeds will dread encountering in the early stages.
This will be their 4th ever meeting, so there’s no question of unfamiliarly. Naomi Osaka holds a clear advantage at 3-0, including a victory last week in Madrid. She is yet to drop a set against the Slovakian. But Cibulkova is exactly the sort of player who can defy expectations in the space of a week. She could take advantage of Osaka’s aforementioned mental fragility and could be worth an outside bet. But perhaps a better option would be an Osaka victory in three sets at 28/10.
Johanna Konta (5/4)
vs Sloane Stephens (11/20)
Aussie born Brit Johanna Konta was one of the most promising players in the world a few years ago. She reached the 2016 Aussie Open semi-final and the 2017 Wimbledon semi-final. But injury and wild inconsistencies in form saw her plummet down the world rankings. It culminated in an ugly stand-off with the media at last year’s French Open. She is yet to win a match in the main draw of the French, highlighting her struggles on the clay. But she seems to have found some traction this season. It perhaps started towards the end of last year with a run to the semi-final of the Kremlin Cup. She lost in a marathon three-setter to Garbine Muguruza in the 3rd round in Melbourne. She then reached the quarters in Mexico. And most recently she reached her first ever WTA clay-court final in Morocco. So Johanna Konta is perhaps emerging from her state of cryogenic freezing at the right time of the year.
Sloane Stephen – much like Naomi Osaka – is a big game player. The 2017 US Open Champion and last year’s beaten French Open finalist perhaps struggles to motivate herself in the smaller events. Her recent engagement to US football player Jozi Altidore was followed by a highly creditable semi-final in Madrid. Perhaps she is ready to bring some more consistency to her powerful game. She won in Miami last season and lost in the Montreal final. Despite her prolific success on the harder surfaces, she claims that her favourite surface is still clay, which is fairly unusual for an American US Open Champion.
These two have only ever met once, on the Brisbane hard-courts earlier this season. Perhaps it was a measure of Konta’s recent rejuvenation that she overcame the far more fancied Stephens. And she will no doubt be buoyed by her recent breakthrough on the Moroccan clay-courts. I fancy Konta to perhaps pull off a slight upset ahead of the French Open.
Written by Damien Kayat for Hollywoodbets
