{"id":83246,"date":"2025-05-07T16:01:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T20:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=83246"},"modified":"2025-05-07T16:02:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T20:02:59","slug":"wta-rome-day-3-predictions-ons-jabeur-vs-kvitova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/05\/07\/wta-rome-day-3-predictions-ons-jabeur-vs-kvitova\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Rome Day 3 Predictions Including Ons Jabeur vs Petra Kvitova"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Second round action at the WTA Rome gets underway on Thursday. Ons Jabeur and Petra Kvitova meet for the first time in two years. Elsewhere, Naomi Osaka is enjoying her best winning run on clay and could extend it against the fit-again Paula Badosa. Who will advance to the next round? We have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/category\/predictions\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">predictions for every<\/a> second round match in Rome.<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Rome Day 3 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Yulia Putintseva vs Jaqueline Cristian<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Putintseva 1-0 Cristian<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2209657976\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2209657976?et=QIXidIyPSsp9ELmL3yS3mA&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=argOLGnDCiL7mwjUedNbR5iGZavYqJx7m_V0eQBYoGE=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>There&#8217;s not a lot that&#8217;s going right for Putintseva this season. You can cherry-pick some of her highlights. She made a strong start in Australia, reaching the Brisbane semis and the third round of the Australian Open. Recently, she helped Kazakhstan qualify for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. But in between, she&#8217;s lost a lot of matches and departed so early in most tournaments. Her Top-20 stay was short-lived. Cristian is a steady performer on clay. It took her a while after her title win in Puerto Vallarta to finally get into rhythm in this swing. Putintseva is not playing to her potential right now, and Cristian is one of the most dangerous unseeded players in the draw.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Cristian in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Elise Mertens vs Suzan Lamens<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>Mertens is a solid 19-9 for the season. It&#8217;s quite remarkable that seven of her nine defeats this season have been against Top 10 players. So this is a kind of matchup where she&#8217;ll be favored to progress. Lamens is one of the most promising Dutch players on the WTA Tour, who owns six wins from her last eight clay-court matches at all levels. But Mertens&#8217; experience and 2025 form should help her avoid an upset.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Mertens in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Naomi Osaka vs Paula Badosa<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>Osaka was quick to downplay expectations after bagging her first career clay-court title in Saint-Malo. She&#8217;s back in the Top 50 and kicked off her Rome campaign with a 6-2 6-3 win over home wild card Sara Errani. Badosa has been out of action since Miami. A lower-back injury delayed her clay return, and she&#8217;ll inevitably be rusty in her first match in over a month. Osaka&#8217;s joyride is likely to continue.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Osaka in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Ons Jabeur vs Petra Kvitova<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Kvitova 4-2 Jabeur<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2212983180\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 54.545456% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2212983180?et=ywn_eK5yQINjfkqxSs9pwA&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=wUY1s4gG-8TZZfF53EgtYd1r1dXbhMO5u4k8xhko8RI=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"324\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>After spending three months chasing her first match win post-maternity, Kvitova was finally rewarded in her opening match in Rome. The power-hitting Czech extended her excellent head-to-head record against Irina Camelia Begu to 7-1. Kvitova summoned her whip-quick strike play to scale past the Romanian in straight sets. When she hits the ball with such geometric precision, Kvitova is almost unplayable. But her game thrives on rhythm and match play and she&#8217;s not quite there yet. Jabeur is inventive and the type of player Kvitova would normally struggle to outmuscle from the baseline. Expect the Tunisian to trim that head-to-head deficit.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Jabeur in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-<em>USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second round action at the WTA Rome gets underway on Thursday. Ons Jabeur and Petra Kvitova meet for the first time in two years. Elsewhere, Naomi Osaka is enjoying her best winning run on clay and could extend it against the fit-again Paula Badosa. Who will advance to the next round? We have predictions for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":60302,"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":[1412,15540,7304,16371,476,15643,1096,15426,12171,15626,101,15531,17500,17501,2373,2369,2374,4935,2873,5945,462,15641],"class_list":["post-83246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-elise-mertens","tag-elise-mertens-predictions","tag-jaqueline-cristian","tag-jaqueline-cristian-predictions","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-naomi-osaka-predictions","tag-ons-jabeur","tag-ons-jabeur-predictions","tag-paula-badosa","tag-paula-badosa-predictions","tag-petra-kvitova","tag-petra-kvitova-predictions","tag-suzan-lamens","tag-suzan-lamens-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-wta-picks","tag-wta-predictions","tag-wta-rome","tag-wta-rome-predictions","tag-yulia-putintseva","tag-yulia-putintseva-predictions"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83246","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=83246"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83269,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83246\/revisions\/83269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}