We still have a little over two months until the French Open, but the WTA action never stops in providing us with some thrilling tennis action.
This week, Kuala Lumpur has once again set the stage for the 2016 BMW Malaysian Open, and the early results from the opening round of this event have been rather unexpected. Top-ranked Roberta Vinci and three other seeded entrants have already been eliminated from competition by some of Asia’s surprising challengers.
With the second round of the event under way, now’s a good time to check out our picks below for the remaining favorites and dark horses looking to win big this weekend. And seeing that the Malaysian Open is turning out to be an upset-heavy affair, you might as well check out a few more of our very own sleeper picks right after this.
World No. 19 Elina Svitolina’s season has not particularly gone according to plan, securing only four wins in her last four tournaments – all held in Australasia – prior to the Malaysian Open. However, maybe this week’s Southeast Asian rendezvous is exactly what she needs to get back on track.
Svitolina had the most impressive win in the first round of the event by ousting Japan Miyu Kato in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1. She won a whopping 19 of 20 of her first serve points and only failed to convert one of her six break-point opportunities in that match.
With only a few notable players left on the field, the Ukrainian looks to be well-within reach of her first title in 2016 indeed.
Su-wei Hsieh
Chinese Taipei’s Su-wei Hsieh made her mark in the WTA as an elite doubles player, yet most people have already forgotten that she had already won a Malaysian Open singles title back in 2012.
Hsieh’s actually been in pretty good form this season as well. She hasn’t lost in the opening round of all her appearances, including her 6-4, 6-4 straight-sets finish against Jana Cepelova. Furthermore, The Taiwanese made it all the way to the semis at Kaohsiung in her very own motherland.
Having said that, the 30-year-old Hsieh is very much capable of keeping up her stellar play on Chinese grounds this week as Asia’s best hope for a WTA title victory.
Sleepers
Kurumi Nara
Japan still has two representatives in the mix for the Malaysian Open title, and one of them is World no. 89 Kurumi Nara. The Osaka native is one pesky customer on the WTA Tour, as Slovakian bombshell Daniela Hantuchova – Nara’s first round opponent at Kuala Lumpur – would attest.
Nara needed a 12-10 tiebreaker in the final set for the gritty win over Hantuchova, and that was also in spite of the five aces that her opponent managed to punch in during Monday’s contest. In fact, she has won all three of her matches that went to deciding sets this season.
Nara’s knack for close-call victories will come in handy against the rest of the tournament’s more decorated players, including her second round opponent. Which happens to be…
Eugenie Bouchard
Yes, 22-year-old Eugenie Bouchard is still alive at the Malaysian Open as the sixth seed of the tournament after a solid 6-3, 6-1 win over Hong Kong’s Ling Zhang in the opening round.
Lackluster performances from the previous year have haunted the 22-year-old Canadian, who only saw one quarterfinal appearance or better in 2014. This year, however, Bouchard’s game has definitely picked up. She made it to the quarterfinal round in Shenzhen and quickly followed-up that outing with a runner-up finish at Hobart.
Given the numerous upsets of seeded entrants that went down these past few days, Bouchard now has a relatively smooth path towards the final round in Kuala Lumpur. But first, she has to dispatch the feisty Nara on Wednesday to prove that her glitzy 2014 run was not a one-hit season after all.
Long Shot
Barbora Krejcikova
Young up-and-comer Barbora Krejcikova has a career record of 148-76 and nine ITF titles under her belt already, but she still has a long way to go from becoming a WTA Tour mainstay.
Krejcikova looks to be in great shape here in Kuala Lumpur considering that she won her two qualifying matches for the tournament in straight sets. Then again, she failed to qualify in all three of her previous attempts at a WTA event this year, and even needed three sets to prevail with the victory over World No. 137 Yafan Wang in the opening round of the Malaysian Open.
The 20-year-old Czech is one of only seven non-Asian participants left in this week’s tourney, but you’d really be better off picking another European that could steal a victory this weekend on Eastern soil.
Writer’s Prediction
Su-wei Hsieh becomes the first two-time winner at the Malaysian Open.
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