{"id":79970,"date":"2025-02-17T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T20:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=79970"},"modified":"2025-02-17T15:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T20:44:10","slug":"wta-dubai-day-3-predictions-swiatek-azarenka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/17\/wta-dubai-day-3-predictions-swiatek-azarenka\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Dubai Day 3 Predictions Including Iga Swiatek vs Victoria Azarenka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Top 8 seeds in the WTA 100 Dubai play their first matches on Day 3. This includes <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/14\/iga-swiatek-jelena-ostapenko-curse\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Iga Swiatek, who lost to Jelena Ostapenko for a fifth consecutive time<\/a> in last week&#8217;s semifinal in Doha. 16 contests are scheduled in total, and we at LWOT predict all the action here and in separate articles, including Coco Gauff vs McCartney Kessler.<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Dubai Day 3 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Jessica Pegula vs Liudmila Samsonova<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: Pegula 3-1 Samsonova<\/p>\n<p>Pegula lost her quarterfinal last week in Doha against Ekaterina Alexandrova, whose playing style is similar to Samsonova&#8217;s. The 26-year-old showed how dangerous she could be for Pegula in the opening round by hammering Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for the loss of just four games. Pegula&#8217;s much greater consistency over a season compared to Samsonova&#8217;s sudden drops in level makes it hard to go against the American, but this could be an interesting match.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Pegula in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Elina Svitolina vs Clara Tauson<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: Tauson 1-0 Svitolina<\/p>\n<p>This has the potential to be among the best contests of the day. Tauson&#8217;s recent improvements and formidable hitting against Svitolina&#8217;s doggedness and experience might provide the perfect balance. It is a challenging matchup to call, but former champion in Dubai Svitolina&#8217;s ability to redirect her opponent&#8217;s pace may prove the difference in the end.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Svitolina in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a  id=\"0Brg5fKxTnF6zho8dW6RRA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2198235879\" 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:'0Brg5fKxTnF6zho8dW6RRA',sig:'W77cx7QEfEJwHOj7rWNj1WYhk3m8MSC_s23NQr7EzNM=',w:'594px',h:'377px',items:'2198235879',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Alycia Parks vs Sorana Cirstea<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: First meeting<\/p>\n<p>Both women demonstrated their powerful ball-striking in impressive opening-round wins. Cirstea beat the No. 10 seed Daria Kasatkina in straight sets, and Parks also did not drop a set against Xinyu Wang. This is another match that has the potential to be decided by fine margins. Parks possesses a superior serve to get free points in the fast Dubai conditions, and that extra advantage is why she is predicted to win.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Parks in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Iga Swiatek vs Victoria Azarenka<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: Swiatek 3-1 Azarenka<\/p>\n<p>Azarenka won the first meeting between these two at the 2020 US Open. Swiatek has responded with three consecutive victories, the most recent two of which were comprehensive straight-set triumphs. A fast hardcourt like the one in Dubai represents Azarenka&#8217;s best chance of causing an upset against the Pole. That does not change Swiatek being the favorite, though, and the four-time French Open winner will be confident of victory.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Swiatek in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Top 8 seeds in the WTA 100 Dubai play their first matches on Day 3. This includes Iga Swiatek, who lost to Jelena Ostapenko for a fifth consecutive time in last week&#8217;s semifinal in Doha. 16 contests are scheduled in total, and we at LWOT predict all the action here and in separate articles, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4708,"featured_media":63881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[15376,16273,11133,15422,394,15585,4315,15631,3535,15652,7278,15829,602,15445,2373,2369,393,15650,4723],"class_list":["post-79970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-alycia-parks","tag-alycia-parks-predictions","tag-clara-tauson","tag-clara-tauson-predictions","tag-elina-svitolina","tag-elina-svitolina-predictions","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-iga-swiatek-predictions","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-jessica-pegula-predictions","tag-liudmila-samsonova","tag-liudmila-samsonova-predictions","tag-sorana-cirstea","tag-sorana-cirstea-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-victoria-azarenka","tag-victoria-azarenka-predictions","tag-wta-dubai-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79970","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\/4708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79970"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79997,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79970\/revisions\/79997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}