Lucie Safarova barged into the third round of the 2015 French Open with a straight-sets win over Kurumi Nara. She will look to seal a spot in the round of 32 when she squares off with the big-hitting Sabine Lisicki this coming Friday.
Who will emerge victorious in this blockbuster matchup? Read on below for a breakdown of this fascinating clash and while you’re at it, you can check out our preview of the much-anticipated showdown between Maria Sharapova and Sam Stosur.
Sabine Lisicki booked a place in the third round of the French Open with an easy victory over Daria Gavrilova. Her opponent was forced to retire after suffering an abdominal injury. Lisicki won the first set, 6-1, before the Australian decided to pack her bags and pull out.
[sc:Other240banner ]With the victory, Lisicki has now matched her best-ever showing at the French Open. She reached the third round at Roland Garros back in 2013. With the way she is playing right now, though, it isn’t far-fetched to see Lisicki improve on that record and go deep in this tournament.
Lisicki has been in fine form in this event, dropping just six games in the three sets she has played thus far. Key to her excellent play is her phenomenal serve. She won 76% of her first serve points in the first round and followed that up with a 91% success rate in that same department in the round of 64.
Things are bound to get tougher for Lisicki, though, as she will next face 13th-seed Lucie Safarova. The Czech star was impressive with her return play in the previous round, winning 56% of her receiving points. She also made the most of her break chances, converting five of 11 break opportunities.
With that being said, Lisicki will fancy her chances of beating Safarova this coming Friday. Lisicki leads her head-to-head matchup against Safarova, 3-1. Lisicki defeated Safarova, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 in their last meeting in Wuhan a year ago.
Lisicki is 4-6 in her last 10 matches.
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Betting on Lucie Safarova
Lucie Safarova breezed into the third round of the 2015 French Open with an emphatic 6-2, 6-0 victory over Kurumi Nara on Wednesday. It was an excellent display of tennis from Safarova who needed just 58 minutes to wrap up the victory.
It was a much better showing from Safarova who struggled mightily in her first round match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Safarova committed 30 unforced errors in that match as well as nine double faults but still managed to hack out a 7-6 (6), 7-6 (9) win.
She had a more efficient outing this time around against Nara, committing just 11 unforced errors against the Japanese. It was her much improved service game, though, that proved to be the difference in the match. She won 82% of her first serve points and didn’t commit a single double fault against Nara.
She will need to produce that same kind of effort in her next match against Lisicki if she is to match her best showing here at the French Open. Lisicki was impressive with her return play in her last match, winning 54% of her receiving points against Daria Gavrilova.
Safarova has lost her last two meetings against Lisicki and is 1-3 in her career against the German. But Safarova will take comfort in the fact that her lone victory against Lisicki came here at Roland Garros. She defeated Lisicki, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, in the first round of the 2009 French Open.
