Lucie Safarova vs. Petra Kvitova
The first semi-final confirmed for Saturday is the enticing all-Czech affair between Lucie Safarova and Petra Kvitova. The two have a lot in common. Both left-handed servers that perform well on the grass, both are great ambassadors for the sport and are extremely popular outside of the tennis court and the two players are close friends off the court too. On paper you would say that Kvitova has the slight edge. Kvitova’s looked the better of the two this week, has created greater opportunities for herself on a grass court historically and she holds a commanding and frightening lead in the head-to-head. Kvitova is 9-0 in previous meetings with her good friend and beat Safarova in the first round of the Aegon Classic last year.
Playing Kvitova is an arduous task for many on any surface and it isn’t just because of the power of her shots. As we saw today in her straight sets win over Kristina Mladenovic, it’s how often she can push her opponents back with the depth of her powerful shots. That prevents her opponent from playing their preferred brand of tennis, which with Mladenovic is to put pressure on her opponent. The Czech is swinging freely this week, she reiterates she has no expectation, no goals and is simply enjoying being back on tour. She’s virtually swinging away with reckless abandon, which is very hard to do as a tennis player. That makes Kvitova much more dangerous in the grand scheme of things.
Safarova saved match points in the first round against Dominika Cibulkova and did the same in the Quarter-Finals to beat Daria Gavrilova, so in most cases she’d feel invincible, but the niggling thigh injury has darkened an otherwise great week to back up her Nottingham semi-final run.
Prediction: Kvitova in two sets.
Garbiñe Muguruza vs. Ashleigh Barty
Both players profited from their opponent retiring in their Quarter-Final matches. Muguruza won after trading sets with Coco Vandeweghe, where the American retired in the 3rd set, while Barty played seven games before Camila Giorgi called it quits. You would suggest that Muguruza is the clear favourite in this match, although Barty is no slouch on a grass court and has virtually nothing to lose in her second career back on the tour.
It is a great story whoever comes through this match. Barty’s comeback to tennis is compelling in itself and how she is rejuvenated following her break from the sport, where she took up cricket in Australia, while Muguruza’s struggles, which everyone has followed since her Roland-Garros win, would all be put to one side if she makes her first final since that historic win over twelve months ago.
Barty’s variety can impose real problems. Players like Anastasija Sevastova have beaten Muguruza by playing with a lot of variation of shots, applying the slice, which through the Spaniard off in her defeat to the Latvian at the US Open. With that being said, Muguruza is playing well and winning matches when she faces adversity too, which she wasn’t doing in the back-end of 2016. That counts for everything and I expect Muguruza to seize the opportunity she has with both hands and silence the demons in her head of whether she can really play on the surface of grass.
Prediction: Muguruza in two sets.
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