{"id":54785,"date":"2023-02-09T19:53:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T00:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=54785"},"modified":"2023-02-09T19:53:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T00:53:35","slug":"wta-abu-dhabi-quarterfinals-predictions-rybakina-haddad-maia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/02\/09\/wta-abu-dhabi-quarterfinals-predictions-rybakina-haddad-maia\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Abu Dhabi Quarterfinals Predictions Including Elena Rybakina vs Beatriz Haddad Maia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quarterfinal day at the WTA Abu Dhabi Open brings us six of the top eight seeds. The two unseeded players, Zheng Qinwen and Shelby Rogers, aren&#8217;t too shabby either. It&#8217;s going to be a quality set of matches with three of the world&#8217;s top 10 in play. Picking winners may be tough but, as always, we&#8217;ve given it a go here at Last Word.<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Abu Dhabi Quarterfinals Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Shelby Rogers vs Belinda Bencic<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Bencic 4-1 Rogers<\/p>\n<p>Iga Swiatek and<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/02\/05\/aryna-sabalenka-is-only-at-start-of-the-journey\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"> Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> are the only two players to have beaten Belinda Bencic this year. The Swiss sports eight wins to counter the losses, only one of them going to a third set. The conclusion? It takes a special kind of player to beat Bencic at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Is Shelby Rogers that player? Any sign of backhand weakness and the match will fall Bencic&#8217;s way. The big serve of Rogers is also likely to be only semi-effective against the early returning prowess of the world #9. We&#8217;d be very surprised to see this one going the American&#8217;s way.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction:\u00a0<em>Bencic in 2<br \/>\n<a id=\"0bhtdXAqRrpGRZ0wjLWEZg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1464197117\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'0bhtdXAqRrpGRZ0wjLWEZg',sig:'INgsf4Y8jwWxN-JllFYj_MbnxL2bZSAWMonKrJf-m2g=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1464197117',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Veronika Kudermetova vs Luidmila Samsonova<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Kudermetova 2-1 Samsonova<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t the best match of her life but the sheer force of Luidmila Samsonova&#8217;s forehand did the damage against the ever-dangerous Barbora Krejcikova in the previous round. Even when her game isn&#8217;t flying high, Samsonova is an extremely dangerous competitor.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, it&#8217;s easy to forget Veronika Kudermetova can turn up to the court a little lacklustre. The Russian&#8217;s serve may look alluring but she can look relatively tame from the baseline if she&#8217;s not on. Fortunately for her, Samsonova isn&#8217;t the best returner in the game so this match-up could be forgiving.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll give the slight edge to Samsonova given how often she plays above average when the stakes aren&#8217;t as high (see her titles in Cleveland, Tokyo and Washington last year).<\/p>\n<p>Prediction:\u00a0<em>Samsonova in 3<br \/>\n<a id=\"z6UVRjDIQLR54YlJS5CATQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1464170633\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'z6UVRjDIQLR54YlJS5CATQ',sig:'jFFCDwmy3KjK7mwbmykVF2NDg93z9zUtGXWyF4szgDk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1464170633',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Daria Kasatkina vs Qinwen Zheng<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>Where is Daria Kasatkina&#8217;s game? There have been only flickers of the sublime form that took her 2022 season to the next level as one-sided losses to Bencic and Gracheva have left fans scratching their heads. Significantly, her second-serve has been getting pounced upon.<\/p>\n<p>Enter Qinwen Zheng to take advantage. The Chinese can handle proceedings on her own serve easily enough (she tops the list this year for first-serve points won)&#8211;if she&#8217;s given enough looks on return as well, she could run away with the match.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction:\u00a0<em>Zheng in 2<br \/>\n<a id=\"oV-La8wNRKJpI-KIxyXf8g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1464510314\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'oV-La8wNRKJpI-KIxyXf8g',sig:'Ic01BDp7UiEwB-1_ZHds06mLcugeJgOefDkTnpMHLfg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1464510314',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Elena Rybakina vs Beatriz Haddad Maia<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>A new year and Beatriz Haddad Maia doesn&#8217;t appear to have lost the form that&#8217;s taken her to a career-high of #14 in the world. A run of six consecutive wins from the end of last year to the Adelaide quarterfinals was unjustly overshadowed by a first-round loss at the Australian Open. Frankly, she&#8217;s still bringing a great level to the court.<\/p>\n<p>Elena Rybakina has been even more impressive though. There are less troughs to that bothersome forehand since the beginning of 2023 and her first-serve remains the best in women&#8217;s tennis. Haddad Maia will put up a good fight but she won&#8217;t be able to exploit Rybakina&#8217;s backhand as easily as she can other opponents&#8217; with her big lefty swings. The Wimbledon champ should prevail.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction:\u00a0<em>Rybakina in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Main photo credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quarterfinal day at the WTA Abu Dhabi Open brings us six of the top eight seeds. The two unseeded players, Zheng Qinwen and Shelby Rogers, aren&#8217;t too shabby either. It&#8217;s going to be a quality set of matches with three of the world&#8217;s top 10 in play. Picking winners may be tough but, as always, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3704,"featured_media":54787,"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":[69,4],"tags":[17106,2840,266,15465,416,15436,5595,15653,18473,18474,16942,16943,545,15420,2373,2369,5398,15535,13393,13453],"class_list":["post-54785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","category-wta","tag-beatriz-hadda-maia-predictions","tag-beatriz-haddad-maia","tag-belinda-bencic","tag-belinda-bencic-predictions","tag-daria-kasatkina","tag-daria-kasatkina-predictions","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-elena-rybakina-predictions","tag-luidmila-samsonova","tag-luidmila-samsonova-predictions","tag-qinwen-zheng","tag-qinwen-zheng-predictions","tag-shelby-rogers","tag-shelby-rogers-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-veronika-kudermetova","tag-veronika-kudermetova-predictions","tag-wta-abu-dhabi","tag-wta-abu-dhabi-predictions"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54785","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\/3704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}