Alison Riske vs. Elena Rybakina Prediction: Kazakh to win in straight sets

On Thursday, August 18, Alison Riske, who is ranked No. 29, will compete against Elena Rybakina, who is ranked No. 25, in the Round of 16 of the Western & Southern Open.

Alison Riske is a competent all-around player who can be challenging for opponents because to her consistency and competitiveness. However, she will struggle to live with the power Rybakina generates and will need a few errors in her favour to have a chance in this one.

 For the first time in her career, Alison Riske has advanced to the third round of an event, however she owes her advancement to a bit of luck. She had a successful tournament debut, defeating world number 48 Sara Sorribes-Tormo of Spain in straight sets to set up a scheduled encounter with Marie Bouzkova. The omens did not necessarily favour her in that match. The Czech world number 46 easily won in straight sets as they faced up at Wimbledon last month. Ultimately, though, Bouzkova had to withdraw from the match due to an injury, and Riske received a walkover.

Elena Rybakina has emerged as a serious contender for major titles on the WTA Tour after her triumph at Wimbledon last month. She has the power and quality of serve to be a real threat on hard courts and will be hard to stop in Cincinnati.

So far this year, Rybakina has competed in 43 total matches (across all court surfaces), with a 54.7% game winning percentage. She averages 21.3 games per match (21.3 in three-set matches) and 9.9 games per set.

Rybakina has put together a service game winning percentage of 77.3% on all surfaces (354-for-458 in service games) and a return game winning percentage of 32% (146-for-456 in return games).

Rybakina is 161-for-204 in service games on hard courts (winning percentage of 78.9%) and 61-for-203 in return games (30%).

A first match with Rybakina should be too much to handle at this point, but betting on the Kazakh to win in straight sets looks like the smart option given the likelihood of three sets.

• Handiсap Alison Riske (+4.5) for 1.95
• Total Under 20.5 for 1.88
• Individual Total 1 Over 9.5 for 1.9