{"id":109259,"date":"2026-07-28T00:37:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=109259"},"modified":"2026-07-28T00:37:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:37:54","slug":"wta-washington-frech-li","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/07\/28\/wta-washington-frech-li\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Washington First Round Best Bets Including Magdalena Frech vs Ann Li"},"content":{"rendered":"

The<\/span> WTA Washington tournament<\/span><\/a> continues its first round on Tuesday. There were some surprises on the opening day of main-draw action on Monday. Madison Keys got knocked out of the tournament by Liudmila Samsonova. Clara Tauson was a strong betting-market favorite over Elisabetta Cocciaretto but lost. What surprises will<\/span> WTA Washington<\/span><\/a> offer next? This is a 500-point tournament, so any player who is not in the top 30 has a lot to play for. Getting a big points boost will help many players gain direct entry to bigger, more important tournaments later in the 2026 tennis season. There is a lot on the line. LWOS has our best bets for three matches. Post your best bets and thoughts in the comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

WTA Washington\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

Potapova \u2013 V. Williams: 19:30 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n

H2H: 0-0<\/b><\/p>\n

Anastasia Potapova will meet Venus Williams for the first time in her career in Washington. The tennis legend has definitely invited discussions about whether she\u2019s capable of competing at a professional level, as she has just <\/span>nine<\/span><\/i> wins<\/span><\/i> since 2020. She has 38 losses during that same stretch. She\u2019s 0-8 this year, and Potapova, even as bad as she\u2019s been this year at times, is still 25-16 in 2026. Potapova is 5-7 on a hardcourt this year, and she\u2019s still a monster favorite. What does that tell you about Venus, even in a tournament like Washington?<\/span><\/p>\n

Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n

The average odds for this match are 1.14-5.64 in favor of Potapova. Even though she\u2019s 5-5 in her last ten matches, with a three-game losing streak entering Washington, she\u2019s still doing better than V. Williams, who is 0-10 in her last ten matches. Oddly enough, you have to go back to this exact tournament in 2024 to find her last win, which came over Magda Frech. Even then, she was still half the underdog she is right now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That being said, <\/span>betting on Potapova -6 games is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

Value bet\/ the best odds: Potapova -6 games at 2.0 @10Bet\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Frech \u2013 Li: 16:30 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n

H2H: 0-5<\/b><\/p>\n

Magdalena Frech will play Ann Li for the second time in 2026, and her sixth time overall. She\u2019s never beaten Li at any point, but three of their matches have gone to a third set. Li beat her in Doha earlier this year in the tournament\u2019s second round. While the match was entertaining, Li won in straight sets. They\u2019ve really only had one match that was competitive all the way through, and that was their 2022 WTA Midland round of 16 match. The first and third sets went to a tiebreak. Frech is 10-10 on a hardcourt this year; Li is just 6-9.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve lost to someone every time you\u2019ve played them, you\u2019re going to find yourself the underdog in future matches, and that won\u2019t change in Washington. Li knows that Frech is someone she can beat, and that\u2019s going to give her a lot of confidence even though she\u2019s not playing her best at the moment. Frech is 3-7 in her last ten, but Li isn\u2019t much better at 4-6 in hers. Frech has seen one hardcourt final this year already, and can win this match. It\u2019s just not very likely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That being said, <\/span>betting on Li winning 2:0 is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

Value bet\/ the best odds: Li winning 2:0 at 2.3 @WilliamHill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Kasatkina \u2013 Kalinskaya: 15:00 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n

H2H: 4-1<\/b><\/p>\n

Our featured match in Washington is Darya Kasatkina vs Anna Kalinskaya. Kasatkina is 4-1 against Kalinskaya, and three of those were hardcourt wins. All of the wins were at the WTA level. The lone match in which Kalinskaya won was their 2022 WTA Guadalajara 2 round-of-16 match, which she won in three sets. Kasatkina is 5-5 in her last ten matches, and Kalinskaya is 6-4 in hers. Honestly, the biggest difference between the two this year is Kasatkina\u2019s tournament victory at La Bisbal. That match was back in May. Kalinskaya has been the better hardcourt player in 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n

As crazy as it is, the books have Kalinskaya as the favorite in Washington. Kasatkina has the winning streak and the tournament title, but Kalinskaya was a finalist here in 2025, a quarterfinalist in 2022, and a semifinalist in 2019. Their overall records are pretty similar. Kalinskaya is 20-14, and Kasatkina is 19-14. The books still have Kalinskaya as the favorite by more than a full point on some books. Whatever happens, I think this match is likely to go to a third set. You can more than double your return on some books, so why not take a chance?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That being said, <\/span>betting on over 2.5 sets is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

Value bet\/ the best odds: over 2.5 sets @2.4 @bet-at-home<\/b><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports \u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WTA Washington tournament continues its first round on Tuesday. There were some surprises on the opening day of main-draw action on Monday. Madison Keys got knocked out of the tournament by Liudmila Samsonova. Clara Tauson was a strong betting-market favorite over Elisabetta Cocciaretto but lost. What surprises will WTA Washington offer next? This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5481,"featured_media":58543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17400,4],"tags":[43969,1526,10120,7645,16683,4594,70,3531],"class_list":["post-109259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","category-wta","tag-2026-wta-washington","tag-anastasia-potapova","tag-ann-li","tag-anna-kalinskaya","tag-darya-kasatkina","tag-magdalena-frech","tag-venus-williams","tag-wta-washington"],"modified_by":"Kane Webb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109259"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109261,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109259\/revisions\/109261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}