{"id":54805,"date":"2023-02-10T16:53:18","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T21:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=54805"},"modified":"2023-02-10T16:53:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T21:53:18","slug":"wta-linz-semifinal-predictions-sakkari-martic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/02\/10\/wta-linz-semifinal-predictions-sakkari-martic\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Linz Semifinal Predictions Including Maria Sakkari vs Petra Martic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The biggest story of the 2023 Linz Open will once again be Maria Sakkari and whether she can win a WTA title after a while. Despite finishing the past two seasons inside the top 10, the Greek has lost five consecutive finals and hasn&#8217;t raised a trophy since May 2019. Two more obstacles await the 27-year-old this week, the first of them being Petra Martic. Who do you think will reach the final?<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Linz Semifinal Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Marketa Vondrousova vs Anastasia Potapova<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Vondrousova 2-0<\/p>\n<p>Marketa Vondrousova continues her journey back to the top of the game and she&#8217;s done very well this week so far, dropping just eight games in two completed matches. On Friday, Dalma Galfi retired 1-4 down against her. Anastasia Potapova&#8217;s path to the semifinals has been much more eventful as all her showings on the court have been recently (six consecutive three-setters).<\/p>\n<p>The Russian played Anna-Lena Friedsam in the quarterfinals and for a long while, she was really struggling to hit through the consistent opponent. Vondrousova is expected to execute a similar gameplan even better and her heavy lefty spins will make it tough for Potapova to keep her error count moderately low.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Vondrousova in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"wfpSHsvhQJ577g80rZtoBA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1458101604\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" 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:'wfpSHsvhQJ577g80rZtoBA',sig:'wZ0L8PcNZKt47jIi3cbdjpr5P0cE_LAM14eCOZE_CkY=',w:'594px',h:'419px',items:'1458101604',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Maria Sakkari vs Petra Martic<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Sakkari 2-0<\/p>\n<p>Maria Sakkari owns two head-to-head wins over Petra Martic, one of them just over a month ago at the United Cup. The Greek has played extremely well in patches this year and scored a massive win over Donna Vekic in the quarterfinals here. While she did fall into trouble from 6-3 5-3 up, she was able to pick herself up quickly and saved five set points to end that affair in straights.<\/p>\n<p>Martic will not be an easy rival at all. The Croat has so much variety and a nice serve that gets plenty of boost indoors. Her match against Alison van Uytvanck this week was a thriller than included plenty of ridiculous shotmaking. Sakkari deserves to be the favorite as she&#8217;s already saved this riddle twice (once so recently), but she should be seriously tested here.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Sakkari in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo from Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The biggest story of the 2023 Linz Open will once again be Maria Sakkari and whether she can win a WTA title after a while. Despite finishing the past two seasons inside the top 10, the Greek has lost five consecutive finals and hasn&#8217;t raised a trophy since May 2019. Two more obstacles await the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2968,"featured_media":54789,"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],"tags":[1526,15429,305,15468,884,15567,2507,15438,2373,2369,9143],"class_list":["post-54805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-anastasia-potapova","tag-anastasia-potapova-predictions","tag-maria-sakkari","tag-maria-sakkari-predictions","tag-marketa-vondrousova","tag-marketa-vondrousova-predictions","tag-petra-martic","tag-petra-martic-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-wta-linz-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54805","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\/2968"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}