Tennis ma 08.08

[Piomil]

Zheng to beat Asagoe
stake : 6/10
odds: 2.440
bookie: 5dimes

Clash between two asian players, continent which is been on top last couple of days in wta. Both of them being absent lately, Asaoge had to recover from injury and Zheng had to play a National Championship in China where she reached a semi-final. Asaoge started season really well, the us open 2004 quater-finalist achive final in Auckland and semi-final in Tokyo her home country. But after that it was still worse and worse, being defeated many times in the first rounds and if we want to know how bad is Asagoe's conidition know we should look at her last ten games. She lost 7 out of her 10 last matches in wta. She had also many healthly problems during last tournaments, problems with foot at roland garros, and problem with shoulder during season on grass, now she need few matches in my opinion to get into her normal shape.

Zheng also started season really well, she even won a single title in Hobart, then she played well on clay reaching quater-final of Estoril and final of Rabat. After that Chinese federation make all chinese players to play in national championships and they couldn't play the grass season. Zheng is not playing in such many tournaments as Asaoge , but if she is playing she is reaching nearly always some good result. They met each other already once this season, when both were in their top forms at the start of the season. Zheng won easily in straight sets 6-2 6-3. Asagoe is a typical japanese player, she is running fast and waiting for her opponents errors but when she is playing with Jie she has to look on. Zheng is a very solid player, she can hit the ball long over and over, and her flat shots are very dangerous, she can hit a lot of winners also.What is maybe most important, Zheng has much better serve, she is also a good double player so we can be sure that she can volley well, and hit the return exactly where she want.

All in all in my opinion Zheng is now in better shape than Asaoge who seems to be not in her best shape in last tournaments, and also Zheng has more abilities in this moment to beat Shinobu what she proved already this year beating her on the same type of surface.

[S.Sukkela]

Canada, ATP Rogers Masters, Montreal

Jonas Björkman - Vincent Spadea 46% 2.33 (Pinnacle)
Dominic Hrbaty - Tim Henman 44% 2.4 (Pinnacle)

WTA JPMorgan Chase Open, Los Angeles

Gisella Dulko - Fabiola Zuluaga 38% 2.8 (Centrebet)
Shinobu Asagoe - Jie Zheng 52% 2.15 (Centrebet)
Anna Chakvetadze - Na Li 50% 2.26 (Pinnacle)