Tennis pe 05.08

[Piomil]

Karatantcheva to beat Sugiyama
odds: 2.030
stake:3/10
bookie: 5dimes

It is a match we can call a clash of generations. 16 years old Sesil Karatantcheva against 30 years old Ai Sugiyama. Totally different style of play, and totally different situations in world of wta for them. Sesil is biggest rising star in the tour right now beside Vaidisova, whereas Ai is one of these players who rather think sometimes that should stop playing tennis profesionally and retire.There are some facts which are saying that it could be a right decision. San Diego is already 18 tournament for Sugiyama this season, she is playing so often because in the most of these tournaments she lost in the first rounds, here she reached scarcely first qauter final of the year which is definetly something not to be proud of for former top 10 player.

Sesil is still improving her game, last year she was not ready yet for plying with senior players but this she has shown her true colours.In two grand slams she drew Sharapova in first rounds , but when she got the opprtunity she reached qauter final of grand slam roland garros defeating Venus Williams.Last year roland garros junior champion starts to reaching good results also in wta tour. Sesil is a hardhitter , but doesn't have powerfull serve which is the weakest point of her game.Sugiyama is a fast runner, she doesn't have hard ground strokes and also not powerfull return which is a big advantage of Sesil in this match.So far Sesil won 43 out of 55 games on hard in her career, it is showing that her game suits to hard courts. To be honest, in my opinion Ai has a luck to be here so far, she beat Hantuchova with a lot of help from Daniela, and also beat Kuznetsova yesterday but Svetlana also helped her. After winning first set she made 56 unforced errors and finally lost and also Sugiyama first round opponent had to retire at the begining of the match , whereas Sesil made quick work of Mashona Washington winning in straight sets, in two first rounds she beat also very experienced players Asaoge and Raymond.

All in all Sesil is in better condition right now, improving her tennis day after day, has the game which is already enough good to beat such a players like Sugiyama, and what is maybe most impotant, her part of the draw is wide open and she has a lot of chance to reach tier 1 tournament .

[S.Sukkela]

Ai Sugiyama - Sesil Karatancheva 56% 2.05 (Nordicbet)