Damien Kayat takes a look at selected Ro32 matches from the Ladies Championship Gstaad.
Stefanie Vogele 3/10 | Tamara Korpatsch 9/4
Seventh seed Stefanie Vogele has certainly had a busy season, competing on the tour proper and ITF Tour in almost equal measure. She comes into this event in good form after winning the ITF France event, despite a first-round defeat to Ashleigh Barty at Wimbledon. Vogele has had some seriously decent finishes this season. She lost the Mexican Open Final to Lesia Tsurenko while the event in Lugano was perhaps even more pertinent. On the clay of the Samsung Open she managed to reach the semi-finals. She also managed to reach the final 16 in Monterrey. So this has certainly been a year of development for Vogele and she will be feeling extremely confident of progressing here.
Tamara Korpatsch doesn’t quite enter this event with the same level of confidence as her opponent this week. She lost in first round of the self-same ITF France event that Vogele just won. She never even made it to through the qualifying stages of Wimbledon. She also lost in the qualifying at Birmingham. Her best results of the year don’t make pretty reading next to Vogele. She reached the final 16 in Prague while she did manage a run to the quarterfinals of the Samsung Open. She managed to defeat Number One seed Kristina Mladenovic en route to that quarter, although the Frenchwoman withdrew while trailing in the latter stages.
Vogele leads their head-to-head stats 1-0 on the main tour. She won convincingly in straight sets at the Samsung Open. Vogele also overcame Korpatsch as recently as May, though that did end up encompassing three sets. All in all, I think Vogele represents great value to win in straight sets at 8/10.
Leonie Kung 9/2 | Johanna Larson 1/8
This will no doubt be a fascinating battle between an established player- Johanna Larsson- and a youngster on the verge of breaking through- Leonie Kung. Johanna Larsson has been something of a journeywoman on the single’s tour, certainly finding more success on the double’s tour. Larsson has surprised this year with some encouraging results, actually going all the way in winning the Nuremberg Cup. That included wins over Siniakova and Kristina Pliskova. She also reached the quarters in Hungary and the Copa Colsanitas event. She is the current double’s champion at this event with Kiki Bertens and clearly has shown a proficiency for this court.
Leonie Kung is a 17-year-old Swiss youngster who will be looking to emulate the success of that other ‘Swiss Miss’, Martina Hingis. She will clearly be emboldened by a magnificent run to the junior finals at Wimbledon. Giving her age there always exists the possibility of a drop in intensity after such a high profile defeat. She has already won two ITF events. She picked up her first win in Oslo last year while she picked up a victory this year at the Fort de-France.
This will unsurprisingly be the first meeting between the two. They are at two completely different career trajectories and this will just be a fascinating test of young Kung’s aptitude for the bigger occasion. But I really doubt that she will be able to compete with Larsson’s power and familiarity with this event. Perhaps 4/10 for Larsson to win in straight sets will offer some value seeing that Kung really stands little chance here.
Written by Damien Kayat for @Hollywoodbets.net
