Top seed Serena Williams barged into the third round of the 2015 Australian Open with a convincing straight-sets victory over Vera Zvonareva. She will look to continue her excellent form when she faces Elina Svitolina in an intriguing round-of-32 clash.
Read on for a complete preview of this matchup and while you’re at it, you can check out our preview of the match between world number one Novak Djokovic and Fernando Verdasco here.
[sc:TennisArticles ]Serena Williams vs. Elina Svitolina Betting Preview
Where: Melbourne Park, Australia
When: Saturday, January 24
Line: Serena Williams vs. Elina Svitolina – view all Australian Open lines
Betting on Serena Williams
Serena Williams sealed her place in the third round of the 2015 Australian Open with a gritty 7-5, 6-0 win over Vera Zvonareva. Williams overcame a sluggish start to reach the Australian Open round of 32 for the 14th time in her career.
[sc:Other240banner ]The five-time Australian Open champion struggled in the early going with Zvonareva breaking her serve twice. Williams, however, dug deep saving three set points before eventually winning the opening set 7-5. With momentum on her side, the world number one brought the hammer down in the second set, shutting out Zvonareva 6-0.
Key to Williams’ recovery was her tremendous service game. She blasted five aces with the American winning 70 percent of her first-serve points against Zvonareva. The 18-time grand slam champion also won two-thirds of her serves overall.
A worrying sign for the opposition is that Williams is looking like the Serena of old right now. She has breezed past her opponents in the first two rounds, completing her two matches in just two hours and 26 minutes. With the sweltering heat enveloping the Melbourne hard courts, that will serve Williams well heading into her next match with 26th-seed Elina Svitolina.
If their past meeting is anything to go by, the advantage in this encounter definitely belongs to Williams. Williams demolished Svitolina in the 2012 Fed Cup, beating the Ukrainian in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1. It’s crucial for Williams to unleash her powerful groundstrokes once again if she is to repeat that impressive performance against Svitolina.
In her second round meeting against Zvonareva, Williams uncorked a total of 32 winners which enabled her to take control and dominate the match.
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Betting on Elina Svitolina
Elina Svitolina continued her love affair with the Australian Open, reaching the third round for the second consecutive year with a tough 7-6 (3), 7-6 (6) win over Nicole Gibbs. Svitolina proved to be too powerful for Gibbs, serving a total of eight aces to grab the win in straight sets.
Svitolina needs to bring the same intensity with her service game when she faces the mighty Serena Williams next in the third round. In her only meeting with the world number one two years ago, Svitolina’s weak serve was severely punished by Williams as she managed to win just three games in a heavy 6-2, 6-1 defeat.
That result was expected though, considering Svitolina was just a 17-year-old rising star back then. A lot has changed since that meeting with Svitolina now the proud owner of two WTA Tour titles. Svitolina captured the Baku Cup the last two seasons, beating Shahar Pe’er and Bojana Jovanovski.
Svitolina is playing some of the best tennis of her life right now with the Ukrainian now ranked 26th in the world rankings, a career-best. One thing missing from her list of accomplishments, though, is an appearance in the fourth round of any grand slam tournament. She has a great opportunity to accomplish that feat if she manages to pull off an upset win over Williams.
The odds may be stacked against her considering she’s facing one of the greatest tennis players ever, but the ball is round and stranger things have happened. She can gain some inspiration from Andreas Seppi who stunned Roger Federer in the second round with an epic four-set win. No one expected such a result with Seppi losing all of his 10 matches to Federer prior to his upset victory last night.
For Svitolina to pull off the same shock result, she needs to improve on her first serve percentage. She only managed to get 55 percent of her first serves in against Gibbs and that will simply not do against a power hitter like Williams. Williams pounced on Zvonareva’s weak service game in her last match, converting 6 of 12 break opportunities in the process.
Writer’s Prediction
Williams crushes Svitolina in straight sets.
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