An interesting final is in store at the WTA Japan Open Tennis Championships where top seed Zhu Lin will square off against American teenager Ashlyn Krueger. Both players were a step ahead of the rest of the field, but only one will lift the title on Sunday. Lin has been to a WTA final this season, bagging the title in Hua Hin in February. Krueger, for her part, will play in her first Tour-level final. With a place in the world’s Top 100 secured for the first time, can the upstart put the cherry on top of a perfect week so far in Osaka?<\/p>\n
Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n Zhu cemented her spot as China’s #2 player in a straight shootout against her compatriot Xinyu Wang. It wasn’t a one-sided straight sets win for the 29-year-old who was pegged back on multiple occasions from a winning position. Momentum ebbed and flowed, but Lin’s ability to pull off spiky backhand winners down the line was a game-changer. Wang did her best to stay in the rallies, but her more experienced countrywoman found that point-ending shot when it mattered to win 7-5, 7-6 in just over two hours.<\/p>\n [cta id=591 type=cta]<\/p>\n Krueger, meanwhile, will contest her first-ever WTA final in Osaka. The 19-year-old is the latest in a long line of newcomers this season to reach the business end of a Tour-level tournament. And she’d done it with the confidence and verve of a veteran. With renowned coach Michael Joyce in her corner, the young American powered through the draw without dropping a set.<\/p>\n Krueger’s dominance from the baseline is attributed to her formidable serve – broken just four times during the week. Bundled with an all-court game, Krueger is versatile for a player standing at 6\u20191\u201d and is physically imposing from the back of the court. And with the way she’s fizzing in confidence, there is a solid chance she’ll topple the higher-ranked Lin.<\/p>\n Prediction: Krueger in 3<\/em><\/p>\n Main photo credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An interesting final is in store at the WTA Japan Open Tennis Championships where top seed Zhu Lin will square off against American teenager Ashlyn Krueger. Both players were a step ahead of the rest of the field, but only one will lift the title on Sunday. Lin has been to a WTA final this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":59912,"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":[16716,16717,2373,2369,8671,8135,17758],"class_list":["post-59909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-ashlyn-krueger","tag-ashlyn-krueger-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-wta-osaka-predictions","tag-zhu-lin","tag-zhu-lin-predictions"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59909","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\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}