Our tennis expert previews two of the round of 32 matches coming your way from the Qatar Total Open.
Camelia Giorgi 37/20 | Kiki Bertens 7/20
Dutch star Kiki Bertens has absolutely bulldozed her way into the forefront of women’s tennis with unbelievable consistency over the last year. Since winning the Charleston Open last year, Bertens has gone on to claim three more titles. That included a huge victory at the Cincinnati Masters. That includes an absolute slew of semi-final and quarterfinal appearances. She is a powerful baseliner who has managed to eradicate an earlier penchant for unforced errors in her game. Bertens has started the year in quite some schizophrenic form. She started well enough, making it to the semi-finals of the Sydney International. However, she disappointed in Melbourne with a limp second round showing. But just when you have a handle on Bertens, she surprises. She managed to capture the St Petersburg Open last week in perfect preparation for this Premier 5 occasion.
Italian Camelia Giorgi – who at 27 is the same age as her opponent – has largely failed to deliver on her massive potential. Widely regarded as having some of the most powerful groundstrokes in the game, Giorgi has the inexplicable ability to veer from brilliant to abject in an instant. But last year’s Aussie Open quarter-finalist is a dangerous player who is always able to pull off an upset. And she enters this event on a run of fairly encouraging form. Towards the end of 2018, she reached the semi-finals of the Pan Pacific Open. She then went on to win the Linz Open. Giorgi looked strong in Melbourne, losing in a titanic three-set tussle with eventual semi-finalist Karolina Pliskova. Giorgi has five hardcourt finals to her name on the WTA Tour and will be looking to pull off a considerable upset here.
This will actually be their third meeting and the players share the spoils 1-1. It’s fairly difficult to gauge their head-to-head stats as they last met in 2016. Bertens is clearly the form player and will be a big favourite. I just feel that Giorgi’s mercurial qualities make her a worthy outside bet here, especially considering Bertens’ exertions last week.
Julia Gorges 5/10 | Ajla Tomljanovic 16/10
German Julia Gorges is a player who seems to perennially have a point to prove. She is like the David Goffin of men’s tennis. She is consistently in and around the top 10, but can she ever truly contend in a Major Championship? She seemed to take a huge step to correct that by reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon last year. It was a tremendous effort that was perhaps somewhat overshadowed by her compatriot Angelique Kerber – who obviously won the event. She had a solid year in 2018, claiming the Luxembourg Open as the top seed. She also lost the Charleston Open Final. She had a plethora of semi-finals and quarter-final appearances in what was a ridiculously stacked schedule for the German. She has started the year weirdly, winning in Auckland before a first-round flop in Melbourne.
Croatian born Aussie Ajla Tomljanovic has come through qualifying and will look for a fairy-tale run in Doha. She is actually coming into this event with form in her own right, having reached the Thailand Open Final. That is a slightly different level of opposition, however, she has generally struggled of late, losing a spate of consecutive first-round matches prior to Thailand. She battled last year in most instances, though two WTA Final appearances points to her status as something of a wildcard. So amongst all the mediocrity, she has managed to reach three finals in the last year. She reached the finals of Korea and Morocco, and she will be aiming to pick up a major scalp this week in the form of Julia Gorges.
Julia Gorges leads the head-to-head 2-1. She won their last meeting at Indian Wells in 2017 and is clearly the huge favourite here. I think that Gorges will have too much for her Aussie opponents and should win in straight sets at 5/4.
