World number six Elina Svitolina will face the 36th-ranked Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round of the 2020 Italian Open on Wednesday, September 16. The match kick-starts at around 9 pm local time (8 pm BST). Get the live streaming options of this Elina Svitolina v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Elina Svitolina v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova Head to Head
There have been four previous matches between Svitolina and Pavlyuchenkova, all of which came between 2013 and 2017 – no real recent meetings to go by. Pavlyuchenkova though, can take heart from the fact she leads Svitolina in their head to head, having won three of those four, including their most recent one at the Australian Open in 2017.
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Ranked sixth in the world, Svitolina hasn’t played in a competitive tournament since tennis returned to the fold earlier in August. She opted out of the clay court competitions in Europe and decided not to travel to USA either for the Lexington Open, Cincinnati Open and the US Open troika of tournaments.
During the pandemic, Svitolina did play in three competitions, all of which were held on different surfaces. At the Elle Spirit Open on clay, the Ukrainian lost two of her three matches, at the bett1 Aces on grass where she won both her matches to win the title and then at the Bett tournament indoors where she finished 0-2.
These are obviously tournaments in which top players look to get some practice and keep match fit in times like these; the results notwithstanding. What Svitolina would be worried about is her lack of results on clay since 2018, when she had lifted the Italian Open title.
Since then she has played seven matches on the surface over the past two seasons, and lost four of them. This includes an opening loss at the Italian Open last season having come in as the defending champion but to be fair to her Svitolina was playing the very dangerous Victoria Azarenka in that one.
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Pavlyuchenkova Takes Three Sets to Get Past Zhang
We had reckoned Pavlyuchenkova would win her opener against Shuai Zhang but also had thought it would be a more straightforward win than what she got. Pavlyuchenkova needed three sets, and a tie-breaker to get past her Chinese opponent, winning 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 to set up this meeting against Svitolina.
Having just played one match on clay this year before that, Pavlyuchenkova had come into the match with back to back first round losses at the Italian Open. A fighting first set and a tie-breaker loss in the second would have awakened her to the possibility of the struggles ahead but Pavlyuchenkova did well to carve out an easy third set.
That being said, last season, Pavlyuchenkova had won just one of her five matches on clay, losing in the second round at the Stuttgart Open and the opening rounds at Madrid, Rome and French Open tournaments. Now she takes on an opponent who might not have played any matches since the resumption of the season but has won the title here before.
Svitolina v Pavlyuchenkova Prediction & Tip
We anticipate a tough battle, despite Svitolina starting off a favourite. Even the odds reflect the same with Svitolina a mere 8/11 favourite to win this while Pavlyuchenkova starting out at 1/1. Svitolina to win because of her pedigree but not expecting it to be straightforward.
Tip: Svitolina to win: 8/11 (bet365)
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The Italian Open 2020 will be played from September 14 to September 20. You can watch & bet on the Italian Open here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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