The 2019 WTA Tour continues in Stuttgart, Germany on Wednesday 24 April 2019 with the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. Check out our full betting preview below for our selected round of 32 fixtures.
WTA Tour 2019 | WTA Premier
Porsche Tennis Grand Prix
Porsche Arena (Clay Indoors)
Selected Round of 32 Matches – 24 April 2019
Garbine Muguruza (11/20)
vs Victoria Azarenka (13/10)
Garbine Muguruza is a strange one to pinpoint. Due to her ability, she should be soaring in the upper echelons of the rankings. But wild inconstancy and injury issues have seen the two-time Major Champion slowly descend in the rankings. This season has been a matter of almost for the Spaniard. She reached the final 16 in Melbourne and reached the quarter-finals of a typically stacked Indian Wells event. But she followed up that Indian Wells form with an opening round defeat at Miami. Muguruza won the Monterrey Open but also just lost back-to-back three-set matches in the Fed Cup. She is almost a tipster’s nightmare, looking indomitable at her best but prone to falling to players outside the top 100 at her worst. Which incarnation of Muguruza will we see this week?
I think it’s fair to say that Victoria Azarenka is probably beginning to play her most consistent tennis since her pregnancy and the subsequent legal battles therein. She has won nine of her last fourteen matches, including a run to the final of the Monterrey Open – more on that later. She had to retire early in that final, which does immediately startle given her recent misfortune with injuries. I also think that a semi-final run alongside Ashleigh Barty in the Miami Open Double’s did her confidence the world of good. Azarenka performed well in her Fed Cup exertions and seems to have quelled that unforced error count. She’s clearly not the player that won two Grand Slam titles, but she will be secretly rating her chances against the wildly unpredictable Garbine Muguruza of recent times. She also was a runner-up here in 2012, which should give her an added layer of confidence.
Their head-to-head reads 1-1, with Muguruza crucially dominating Azarenka in the Monterrey final. Azarenka was forced to withdraw so perhaps that dominance must be taken with a pinch of salt. But the surface should suit Muguruza and this will be their first ever meeting on clay. I think that the wise option may be to back Muguruza to win in straight sets at 13/10.
Donna Vekic (15/10)
vs Angelique Kerber (9/20)
vs Angelique Kerber (9/20)
Last year’s Wimbledon Champion seems to have finally come down off of that Grand Slam winning cloud. Her 2018 season tailed off into ignominy but 2019 has certainly offered some tantalizing glimpses for the German as this hectic period of the season approaches. The 2015 and 2016 Stuttgart Open Champion will be galvanized by fanatical home support this week. She reached the final 16 in Melbourne prior to semi-final appearances in Qatar and Monterrey. But it was that run to the final of the Indian Wells event that truly signalled her return to the heavy hitters’ circle. Though she has won this event twice, clay has certainly proved the toughest surface for Kerber. Her 61% win rate at Roland Garros is a full 10% behind her overall Grand Slam win-loss ratio of 71%.
This would be an absolute humdinger on grass. Having said that, Vekic has certainly shown signs of improvement over the last season which should give her some encouragement this week. Semi-finals in Brisbane and Mexico underline her improvement. But it was a run to the final of the St Petersburg Open that really propelled Vekic into the limelight again. Vekic has a statuesque physique that is not really suited to clay. She also tends to hit the ball far generally too flat for these surfaces. But her 2019 resurgence will see her enter this event with a fair degree of confidence.
Kerber unsurprisingly leads the head-to-head 2-0. In fact, Kerber has yet to drop a set against the Croatian. The two have never played on clay, though one would think that the durable Kerber will be far more suited to that particular challenge. Kerber is the only sensible option in this match and should win comfortably.
Written by Damien Kayat for Hollywoodbets
