Arantxa Rus vs Maria Sakkari Prediction: Sakkari the obvious favorite

The Women’s Tennis Association features a highly intriguing playing field where we see the rise of new stars constantly. Lately, Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka have established their names as the two top players and Elena Rybakina has also been a regular in terms of making a deep run. One player that will look to build upon a solid start to her career, Maria Sakkari will take on Arantxa Rus. 

Veteran Arantxa continues to grind her way at the age of 32. She entered the tournament as a Qualifier and managed to defeat Amanda Anisimova 7-5, 6-2 in the Round of 128. She took advantage of Amanda’s seven double-faults and had a 73-57% first serve advantage and earned a 42-34 service points edge while having a 36-25 receiving points edge. Arantxa entered the Qualifiers as the sixteenth seed and defeated Anna Lena-Friedsam to make it through. Rus is currently ranked at 89 and has been ranked as high as 61 way back in 2012.

Sakkari comes into the tournament after losing to Karolina Pliskova in the first round during Stuttgart Open. Prior to that, she had also lost in the first round during Miami Open, a loss which came up against Bianca Andreescu. However, she had made it to the Semis of Indian Wells Master but lost to Aryna Sabalenka. Sakkari has mostly lost in the fourth and Semis earlier but lately, her campaign has ended in the first round itself. Will she able to correct the record?

Rus and Sakkari have met four times and Sakkari has won all the battles. They last met during Parma Open when Rus finally took a set.

Maria’s confidence isn’t the same and being a high-ranked player in her own words has taken the “joy out of her game”. However, she is still high-quality and still has some deep runs in her. Rus has shown some decent chops but I expect her to lose here. I believe Sakkari will end this in two sets.