Though the excitement of the Australian Open is only two days behind us, the WTA season grinds on with a 250 in Hua Hin. There are still plenty of intriguing matches going on in Thailand–and we predict Day 2 action for you. As always, we at LWOT will preview and predict every match. We split the rest of the day’s matches between two other articles. One features Marta Kostyuk vs En Shuo Liang, and the second highlights Heather Watson vs Yulia Putintseva.
WTA Hua Hin Day 2 Predictions
Tatjana Maria vs Alexandra Eala
Head-to-head: First meeting.
Experience versus youth. Alexandra Eala takes some great form into this tournament with plenty of notable wins lining her CV from last year. Tatjana Maria has a knack for making some of the most experienced players on the tour look erratic though–it feels as though a big hitting junior without the experience to establish some WTA Tour tennis IQ is a very unfavorable match up against the tricky slices of Maria.
The German should take this one in straights even if Eala red lines her game for a while.
Prediction: Maria in 2
Linda Fruhvirtova vs Bethanie Mattek Sands
Head-to-head: First meeting.
This could be brutal. It’s great to see Bethanie Mattek Sands trying her hand at singles again as she takes a wild card into the draw here in Hua Hin. She should treat her first few matches back as a means of gauging her fitness levels and getting used to playing singles tactics again–after all the result of this one seems pretty inevitable.
Linda Fruhvirtova is a phenom with some of the best promise from the baseline in recent generations and is coming off a fourth round at the Australian Open. Mattek Sands is a heavy underdog here.
Prediction: Fruhvirtova in 2
Bianca Andreescu vs Harriet Dart
Head-to-head: Andreescu 2-1 Dart
Bianca Andreescu and Harriet Dart have met three times but two of those meetings came in 2016. Their most recent meeting was close with Andreescu winning in three in Montreal in 2021 but even that may not be a decent indication of how this one plays out. Both players are in different places from when they last met on the court.
Andreescu has had decent results to keep herself in the Top 50 but nothing like the form that took her to her maiden Grand Slam title two years ago. Great wins against Kvitova, Teichman, Haddad Maia, Kastakina and Cornet last year can be counterbalanced with drops in form to Garcia, Rogers, Golubic, Bucsa–it’s not the players she’s losing to, rather the nature in which she’s lost the matches, with her returns failing her at times.
Her form is patchy and Harriet Dart will be ready to capitalize if there’s any doubt. The Brit is playing the best tennis of her career and has been there to take advantage of dips from Badosa, Tomljanovic, Teichman and most notably Kasatkina at the US Open last year. We’re backing Andreescu to be below her best and Dart to be ready for the occasion.
Prediction: Dart in 3
Main Photo from Getty.
