Day two of the Ladies Championships at Lausanne features, among other matches, an all-Swiss battle as well as the return to action of the defending champion Alize Cornet. But who will advance to the second round?
WTA Lausanne Day 2 Predictions
Timea Bacsinszky vs Jil Teichmann
Head-to-head: Bacsinszky 1-0 Teichmann
In what seems to be a trend entering this tournament, both contestants arrived in Lausanne on a four-match losing streak. Bacsinszky, once ranked as high as ninth in the world, has collected more losses (16) than wins (15) so far this season. On the other side of the net, Teichmann is a rising talent, but not in the best form. In April, the young left-hander captured her maiden WTA title in Prague after coming through the qualifying, but has rather struggled since.
The lone encounter between these two took place on carpet in 2013, when Teichmann was just 16-years-old, so don’t expect that result to have too much bearing on the outcome of this match. Between 2015 and 2017, Bacsinszky became a feared clay courter on tour, twice reaching the last four at Roland Garros. However, her level hasn’t been the same since returning from a lengthy injury break last year and Teichmann looks to be poised to take advantage.
Prediction: Teichmann in 3
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Alize Cornet vs Martina Trevisan
Head-to-head: first meeting
Judging only by the rankings, this should be a lopsided affair in favour of Cornet. Trevisan has a modest career-high ranking of 144 by age 25, which means she goes back and forth between the ITF and WTA tours. Nevertheless, the Italian is coming off a semifinal run last week at Contrexeville, a $100,000 ITF event. In turn, the defending champion is in a delicate situation. Should she drop all 280 points from her 2018 Gstaad title, she would have reached only one semifinal in the past 52 weeks. Not good for a once very promising player. But spurred on by the good memories of her triumph in Switzerland last year, she should have enough to progress.
Prediction: Cornet in 2
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Julia Goerges vs Simona Waltert
Head-to-head: first meeting
This is a terrible draw for the Swiss wild card, who will be making her WTA main draw debut against the top seed. Believe it or not, Goerges owns a higher winning percentage on clay (61%) than on hard (57%) or grass (55%). And, last time she entered a tournament as the favorite, 2018 Luxembourg, she went on to win it. Waltert, who cracked the top ten as a junior, has not lived up to expectations as a pro so far and remains hovering around the top 500, although she was affected by the dual rankings system so badly implemented at the start of 2019. But this certainly seems like a step up in quality too great for her to make.
Prediction: Goerges in 2
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Samantha Stosur vs Barbara Haas
Head-to-head: first meeting
Former US Open champion Sam Stosur has gone a miserable 16-26 since playing in Gstaad last season, plummeting all the way to her current ranking of #134 as a result. The good news for the Australian is that she is not facing a world beater in the first round. In fact, Barbara Haas, an Austrian qualifier, is ranked below Stosur at 170th in the world. In the two weeks prior to Lausanne, Haas spent her time far from the glamour of Wimbledon. Instead, she was playing two ITFs, and not particularly well. So over-the-hill Stosur might be, she’s still in a different league to Haas.
Prediction: Stosur in 2
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