The 2019 WTA Tour continues in Morocco with the Rabat Grand Prix semi-finals taking place on Tuesday 30 April 2019. Check out our full betting preview below.
2019 WTA Tour | WTA International
Rabat Grand Prix (Morocco Open)
Semi-Finals – 3 May 2019
Johanna Konta (21/20)
vs Alja Tomljanovic (7/10)
vs Alja Tomljanovic (7/10)
The fortunes of Johanna Konta have been extremely turbulent over the past few years. The Aussie-born Brit is a three-time WTA champion and once stood on the precipice of a prolonged period in the upper echelons of women’s tennis. She reached two Grand Slam semi-finals and won the coveted Miami Open crown prior to 2018. But a dreadful dip in form was to follow and Konta truly struggled in 2018. But she started to show some signs of life towards the end of last year, culminating in a run to the semi-final of the Kremlin Cup. She has shown some sparks of life thus far this year, with a quarter-final in Mexico and a decent run at Indian Wells. Konta is hardly a clay-court maestro and generally prefers faster surfaces. But a win here would do wonders for her confidence as she looks to rebuild her career.
Reversing Konta’s exit from Australia, Alja Tomljanovic is a Croatian born, naturalized Aussie. She was a promising junior player and her professional career seemed to be on track till a terrible shoulder injury saw her miss the entire 2016 campaign. But she has incrementally built her form back up and seems to be in a decent space right now. She lost the Hua Hin Championship final earlier this year and also had two finals appearances last season. One of those finals came in this very event. She battled past a fierce Bacsinsky in her opening match before routinely disposing of Petersen in the last round. In my estimation, her career seems to be in a very similar spot to that of Konta right now. She will be hoping to draw from last year’s experiences and make her second consecutive final at the only WTA event played in Africa.
This will be their fourth ever meeting, with Konta leading the exchange 2-1. Curiously, all three of their previous matches have taken place on Australian hard-courts. I just have the feeling that Johanna Konta may be about to recapture her very best form. She is a two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist and looks to be coming out of a dismal run of form that had become quite toxic.
Alison Van Uytvanck (23/20)
vs Maria Sakkari (6/10)
vs Maria Sakkari (6/10)
This should be an intriguing battle between two quintessential mid-tier WTA players. Maria Sakkari is part of a Greek tennis dynasty, with her mother being a former top 50 player in her own right. Sakkari just beat Elise Mertens and has looked extremely comfortable on this surface. She lost in last year’s Silicon Valley Classic in what was her first WTA final. But one look at her ITF history shows a certain underlying proficiency on clay. Of her 26 ITF finals, ten have been on clay, including four victories. She reached the Charleston quarter-finals and had a decent third round showing at the year’s first Grand Slam. She seems to be in a decent vein of form and will be looking to push on into her third WTA final.
The 25-year-old Belgian is more decorated than her opponent with three WTA titles to her name. In fact, the decisive Van Uytvanck has won all three finals she has been in. She successfully defended her Hungarian Open title already this season. Other than that, her form has largely been indifferent, though her three victories this week have been impressive. One look at her ITF career final history clearly shows that the Belgian has a preference for the harder surfaces. Having said all that, she did record her best Grand Slam finish at Roland Garros in 2015.
Van Uytvanck leads Sakkari in the head-to-head 1-0, with Sakkari having to retire in the final set of a pulsating match on grass in 2017. Both of these players actually enter this event with identical recent form, having won seven of their last ten matches. But I think that Sakkari could hold the key on the clay. She may even be worth a gander at 29/20 to win in straight sets.
Written by Damien Kayat for Hollywoodbets
