Elina Svitolina 1/5 | Shelby Rogers 34/10
Elina Svitolina will feel devastated after failing to place in Paris. The Ukrainian has been an outspoken critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and you got the impression that she wanted it a little more than anyone else last week.
She led Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova 2-0 in the deciding set of their 3rd round tie but just couldn’t see things through. This has been a slightly disappointing campaign for the Ukrainian star.
She started the year with a run to the Auckland final and she has continued to impress at Grand Slam level, reaching the 4th round in Melbourne and Paris before a notable quarterfinal finish at SW19. But she has been erratic in the intervening tournaments, struggling to integrate a bit more aggression into her game.
A defensive baseliner by nature, Svitolina has been working on becoming a little more proactive in rallies and it has resulted in some inconsistency. She will have some good memories of this event, winning the title back in 2017 (when this was still known as the Aviva Stadium).
Shelby Rogers will be hoping that the home trappings of the North American hardcourt season can lead to an uptick in her dreadful form. The 31-year-old was once a feared dark horse competitor on hard surfaces, reaching the quarterfinals of the 2020 US Open.
She finished runner-up at the 2022 WTA 500 event in Silicon Valley and she will be looking to draw on some of those positive experiences this week. Rogers took some time away from the court towards the end of last year, looking to recuperate from a bad abdominal strain.
And she hasn’t really been able to recover this year, failing to win back-to-back matches while playing under a protected ranking. She was eliminated by Montgomery in last week’s Citi Open and she knows that she needs to start winning some matches (she has plummeted to a ranking of 369 in the world).
The Verdict: Svitolina to win in three sets 3/1
Svitolina leads the head-to-head 4-0. Having said that, three of those four matches have gone all the way to three sets. Svitolina may still feel a bit deflated after her Olympic disappointment and Rogers could take advantage of that.
Rogers is a dogged hardcourt competitor and I can see her surprising Svitolina a bit. Still, Svitolina is a great problem solver and will likely get the job done in the end.