Usually, not many top 10 players step on to court in the week before a Major. Elina Svitolina is an exception to the norm this week at the WTA Chicago Open, a 250 event. The world #6 is seeking her first title of the 2021 season in Illinois. Trying to prevent that from happening will be Alize Cornet<\/p>\n
Head to head:<\/strong> Svitolina 4-3 Cornet<\/p>\n Svitolina entered the week as a massive favorite to lift the trophy as the lone top 30 player in the field. So far, so good. After struggling in the opening round versus the rising star Clara Burel<\/a>, the Ukrainian picked up two convincing wins in straight sets against Fiona Ferro and the inconsistent but dangerous Kristina Mladenovic. In the semifinals, Svitolina defeated Rebecca Peterson of Sweden 6-1 6-7 6-3, recovering impressively from losing the second set tiebreak to win the decider.<\/p>\n In the final, Svitolina will meet a fourth French player in Cornet. The 31-year-old has had a strange season herself, having compiled a middling 19-19 record, but with wins over the likes of Bianca Andreescu, Garbi\u00f1e Muguruza or Marketa Vondrousova to draw confidence from. She defeated the latter in the quarterfinals here at the WTA Chicago Open in one of the three matches in which she had to rally from a set down to secure victory.<\/p>\n It\u2019ll be a battle of baseliners who know each other quite well, having faced each other on seven occasions to date, albeit just one on hard court. Cornet had the upper hand in that match, which was\u00a0 contested in Moscow eight years ago, but Svitolina wasn\u2019t even ranked top 100 yet, so it\u2019s not the best indication of what could happen in Chicago. Now as a longstanding member of the top ten, expect the Ukrainian to have too much for Cornet.<\/p>\n Prediction: Svitolina in 2<\/em><\/p>\n Main photo:
\nEmbed from Getty Images<\/a>