The recent Wimbledon champion, Elena Rybakina, is back to a tour-level final. Standing between her and the 2022 Slovenia Open title is Katerina Siniakova. Who will come out on top?
Elena Rybakina vs Katerina Siniakova
Head-to-head: Rybakina 4-2
It’s a well-known fact that first-time Grand Slam champions tend to suffer from a bit of hangover, dropping their form in the next few events. Elena Rybakina didn’t show it in the lead-up to the US Open as the opponents she was losing to were absolutely elite (Daria Kasatkina, Madison Keys, Cori Gauff), but something started going wrong with her defeat against Clara Burel in New York.
The Kazakh then came to Portoroz and had a terrible performance against Laura Siegemund in the opening round, coming back to win from 2-5 down in the deciding set and saving a match point. Luckily for her, she’s improved a lot as the week went on. The 23-year-old crushed Tereza Martincova and Ana Bogdan, finally playing her all-out aggressive tennis with the same kind of efficiency as in London a couple of months back.
Her rival in the final of the 2022 Slovenia Open will be Katerina Siniakova, the doubles World No. 1. The 26-year-old grabbed a title at a stacked 100K ITF in Grodzisk Mazowiecki over a month ago, but only found one singles win during the North American hard-court season. She’s back to her best in Portoroz though, dropping just one set on the way to the final (against the defending champion Jasmine Paolini).
There’s just one problem – due to a rain delay, Siniakova had to spend four hours on the court on Saturday, playing both her quarterfinal and semifinal matches. She pulled through, but might have little left in the tank for Rybakina. In that case, it will be even easier than usual for the Kazakh to apply her devastating power and dominate the proceedings. Rybakina also won their two completed hard-court meetings. They played once in 2022 with Siniakova retiring at 0-6 0-1 in Madrid (clay).
Prediction: Rybakina in 2
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