World number five and third seeded Elina Svitolina will face Russia’s Varvara Gracheva in the first round of the 2020 French Open on Monday, September 28. The match begins at around 1 pm local time (12 noon BST or 7 am Eastern Time). Get the live streaming options of this Elina Svitolina v Varvara Gracheva match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Elina Svitolina v Varvara Gracheva Head to Head
This will be the first meeting ever between Svitolina and Gracheva, who is ranked 89th in the world.
Also Read:
Svitolina High on Strasbourg Win
Starting out her post-pandemic season at the Rome Open, Elina Svitolina registered a couple of solid wins to reach the quarterfinals before falling to Marketa Vondrousova in that match. However, that showing was just an appetiser to what was to follow at the Strasbourg Open.
After a first round bye, Svitolina was up against Magda Linette, Jil Teichmann, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina in the different rounds of the tournament leading up to the final. And while the opposition pedigree grew more and more difficult as the matches progressed, Svitolina found a higher gear in her game too.
By the time she had taken to the court for the final at the Strasbourg Open, it was long forgotten that Svitolina had only the previous week played in just her first tournament since March. Sure, Rybakina made a match out of it but proved to be no match for the high-flying Svitolina who came through in three sets, 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 to lift her 15th WTA title.
She now takes on an opponent who has seen some success in recent times to propel her to her career-best ranking.
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Gracheva Loves Playing on Clay
She has won seven titles at the ITF circuit level in her career and all of Gracheva’s titles have come on clay. More recently, last week she made it to the semifinal of the Cagnes-Sur-Mer ITF competition in France but the greatest result of 20-year-old’s short career came at the US Open earlier this month.
Featuring in her maiden main draw Grand Slam competition, Gracheva defeated Paula Badosa and Kristina Mladenovic in the first two rounds to make it the round of 32 and garner important ranking points. She lost in straight sets to Petra Martic but that had helped her move into the top 100 of the WTA rankings.
Earlier this season, Gracheva had failed to qualify for the Palermo Open and Cincinnati Open and lost in the first round of the WTA Prague. In fact even before the pandemic break, Gracheva looked like she was struggling to get going, unable to make it to the main draws of most events and crashing out early at the ITF circuit.
The break seems to have done her good but facing up to the third seeded Svitolina would be her greatest challenge of the season.
Svitolina v Gracheva Prediction and Tip
No surprises that Svitolina starts off at 1/7 to win this one but can she do that in straight sets? Gracheva might have a trick or two up her sleeve which could push the contest towards a tie-breaker in one of the sets but that’s about how far we expect her to go in this match.
Tip: Over 18.5 games in the match: 4/5 (bet365)
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The French Open 2020 will be played from September 27 to October 11. You can watch & bet on the French Open here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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