Sorana Cirstea vs Magda Linette: Two battle-hardened Warriors

Officially, the US Open is just a few days away with its Qualifiers have already started but the stars will grace the stage from 29 August. The US Open not only offers great prizes throughout each round but the rankings are also at stake. In the WTA scene, the rankings seem to be a hazy concept as numerous times, the top-ranked players are ousted quickly and during the 2021 US Open, a 400th ranked Qualifier Emma Raducanu won the title. But before that, we have the Tennis in the Land tournament where Sorana Cirstea will take on Magda Linette.

Sorana comes into the game after defeating Marcela Zacarias 6-2, 6-3. She made 5 Aces in the game and had an impressive 100% win percentage on the second serve. She didn’t concede any break points and managed a 29-12 receiving points advantage. However, this is one of the least surprising wins as Zacarias is mainly an ITF player and Sorana has been active in the WTA for more than a decade at this point.

In her long career, Cirstea has never made it past the 21 ranking and has hovered in similar ranges since that period. She has built a solid career on the back of her aggressive game which involves high risk. This high-risk nature of the Romanian has held her back in various ways as she commits too many unforced errors and is prone to numerous other type of mistakes.

Magda took care of business against Yulia Putintseva 6-4, 6-2 in the first round. It was a game where she had a 29-20 receiving points advantage and won 35 service points compared to 29 by Yulia. Magda comes into the tournament after some strong runs here and there but big success remains elusive for the Polish player on the WTA circuit. While she has many jewels to boast about in the ITF circuit, the WTA success has been limited, not unimpressive but limited.

She is ranked at around 67 which may not scream a substantial one amidst the sea of top players but even that ranking means that she has had a decent impact in women’s tennis. In the WTA scene, she has been usually entering as a Qualifier these days, and much more is expected out of the Polish player who started as a counterpuncher but has gradually developed an attacking baseline game.

Sorana and Magda have met four times with Sorana winning three of those battles. They both last met during Strasbourg Open where Sorana won in three sets.

Sorana is an experienced campaigner who has had won against Linette multiple times before but hey, this is the WTA scene we are talking about, you never know what is cooking here. In this case, it seems wise to back Cirstea but Linette has been doing her thing early in scenarios too. I’d take Sorana here though.