The action continues in Sydney with the quarter-finals of the Apia International taking place this Wednesday. Bookmakers Review breaks down the fixtures below and lists the best available odds from green listed bookmakers.
Wozniacki vs. Strycova
A high-quality contest is expected this Wednesday between the world no.19 – Barbora Strycova – and the world no.20 – Caroline Wozniacki.
Even though Caroline holds a remarkable record throughout her career with 25 titles and more than 500 wins, the Danish never made it into the WTA Sydney semi-finals. With a poor 7 – 7 record in Sydney, Wozniacki was defeated on her previous two appearances in the quarter-finals – 2009 and 2012. The former world no.1 reaches this stage of the competition after a three sets battle against Monica Puig and a straight sets victory against Yulia Putintseva.
Known as one of the trickiest players on the WTA Tour, Strycova is never an easy opponent to face. Barbora’s ability to change the rally pace with slices and drop shots makes her a very dangerous player. The Czech clearly enjoys the game conditions in Sydney with a terrific 66.67% winning record. Looking now to Strycova’s campaign so far, the Czech featured two outstanding performances against Ekaterina Makarova and Roberta Vinci.
This will be the 7th career meeting between these two players with Wozniacki leading on the h2h by 4 – 2. However, Strycova won two of their last three encounters – the last one at this same event two years ago.
Despite Wozniacki’s improvements on serve in recent years, she’s still a very vulnerable player on the 2nd serve. On the other hand, Strycova is a remarkable returner and her numbers this week are a good example of that, winning 68.42% of her opponents’ service games. Barbora won’t give any pace from the baseline to Wozniacki and this should be a much tougher match than the odds suggest. Therefore, the value is clearly on Strycova’s odds at 8/5 at William Hill while BetVictor offers 53/100 for Wozniacki’s victory. Even though we believe in Barbora’s victory, our advice is to take her +1.5 Set Handicap at 3/4 at Pinnacle.
Calculators
