WTA Copenhagen & Barcelona: Preview & Predictions

This week sees the beginning of the European clay court season in Barcelona and the hard court tournament in Denmark, which continues to somersault around the calendar each year...

WTA Copenhagen

Caroline Wozniacki

Copenhagen boasts a much stronger line-up than previous years although Caroline Wozniacki looks a dead cert to reach the final with much of the strength of this draw residing in the bottom half.  Wozniacki will first have to get past Urszula Radwanska before potentially meeting Sofia Arvidsson in the quarter-finals, who narrowly missed out on an upset win over the Dane in Indian Wells earlier this year.   Her draw looks to get much easier in the semi-finals with her projected opponent being Monica Niculescu; however I fancy Ksenia Pervak to have a good run on the indoor hard courts of Copenhagen.

The bottom half features Angelique Kerber, Mona Barthel, Jelena Jankovic and Kaia Kanepi.  Kerber and Barthel are likely to meet in one quarter-final, meanwhile the out-of-form pair of Jankovic and Kanepi could meet in the other.  As you would expect, i'm tipping Mona Barthel to reach the final! She reached the semi-finals in Copenhagen last year and has already beaten Kerber this year in Hobart so I cannot go against her this time.  Jankovic will play Laura Robson once more in the first round and I think will break her losing streak.  If Kanepi can get past Anastasia Rodionova in the first round, I think she can find her way back into form after a woeful patch since her title win in Brisbane at the start of the year.

Final Prediction - Caroline Wozniacki d. Mona Barthel

Dark Horses - Ksenia Pervak and Kaia Kanepi

My draw predictions for Copenhagen can be found here

WTA Barcelona

Francesca Schiavone

Barcelona is headlined this year by Francesca Schiavone, Julia Goerges, Dominika Cibulkova and Sara Errani headlining the draw.  The draw is pretty even with many players of a good standard, which makes predicting extremely difficult! In the top half, I fancy Flavia Pennetta to come through. I think Schiavone will find some wins on the clay after a turgid start to 2012, but I cannot see her winning the title.  As a dark horse, I would go for Sorana Cirstea to have a good week.  She does have a tricky first round match against Polona Hercog, but I wonder how the Slovenian will deal with that 6-0 6-0 semi-final loss at Charleston...

In the bottom half, i'm going for Julia Goerges to make the final.  She has looked much more consistent this year and loves the clay with her two titles both coming on the dirt.  She could face the young Spaniard, Garbine Muguruza Blanco in the second round, who stormed through to the 4th round of Miami.  There are a number of tricky players in this section with Sara Errani, Roberta Vinci, Simona Halep, Shahar Peer and Carla Suarez Navarro all ready to have a great run in Barcelona...

Final Predictions - Julia Goerges d. Flavia Pennetta

Dark Horses - Sorana Cirstea and Carla Suarez Navarro

My draw predictions for Barcelona can be found here

This is a pretty quiet week on the tennis front in terms of tournament status and compared to recent weeks so I will be taking a short break from blogging; however I will keep updating my prediction pages for Copenhagen, Barcelona and Houston so please do stay tuned!  In the next few weeks, we have two of my favourite tournaments (ATP in Monte Carlo and WTA in Stuttgart), which I will be back to keep you fully updated on! Look out for some previews at the end of the week :-)

Serena destroys Safarova, claims Charleston title

Serena Williams was utterly dominant in the Charleston final as she won her first title since the Premier event in Toronto last August with a 6-0 6-1 victory over Lucie Safarova.  Like Stosur in the semi-finals, Safarova did not do a lot wrong as she was thoroughly outplayed by the rampant American.  There will be alot of people now bigging up Serena and saying she is the one to beat; however this is just one tournament win and there is still a long way to go before the French Open.  I am interested to see how she gets on in Madrid and Rome with all the top players in action before labelling her as the favourite for the next major at Roland Garros.  It was a great week for Safarova but I felt she lacked belief from the beginning that she could do anything to stop Serena in the final today.

Serena Williams

WTA Charleston: Semi-final preview and predictions

Polona Hercog (14) v Lucie Safarova (9)

Lucie Safarova

The top half of the Charleston draw always looked a little ropey compared to the bottom half and things have panned out that way with two unexpected faces making the semi-finals; however lets not write them off just yet as both have sparkled on the green clay this week.  Hercog had won just two main draw matches on tour in 2012, but has stepped up her game in a big way in Charleston by trebling her number of wins for the year.  She beat Nadia Petrova, 6-1 6-2 in the quarter-finals and was particularly dominant on the return of serve.  Safarova has continued her solid start to 2012 with two good wins over Aleksandra Wozniak and Vera Zvonareva; against the Russian, she played an excellent match and was surprisingly the more consistent player against the former world number two, whose game has rather deserted her in 2012.

Hercog and Safarova have played each other twice before with both winning one match.  I have never actually seen Hercog play so I am hoping to catch a bit of the match later today.  I think it will be a close run thing but I was so impressed with Safarova's form yesterday, i'm backing the Czech player to reach the final...

Prediction - Safarova in 3 sets

Serena Williams

Serena Williams (5) v Sam Stosur (2)

Serena Williams has progressed to the semi-finals without little fuss and for the loss of no sets.  She progressed yesterday when Sabine Lisicki was forced to retire hurt midway during the first set.  Sam Stosur on the other hand had a far tougher day as she came through two three set matches.  She firstly had to finish her third round match off against Galina Voskoboeva before a rather streaky performance eventually saw off Venus Williams in the quarter-finals.  Her forehand was working especially well yesterday, but she struggled to close out the match and could easily have finished off Venus in 2 sets; however it was still a good overall performance.

Serena and Stosur played last week in Miami where Serena prevailed in a tight two setter, 7-5 6-3.  Stosur won their only previous encounter on the clay at the French Open although the green clay does play quite differently to the red clay.  I am a little on the fence with this one because I think Stosur has a great shot at getting past Serena.  However after playing two long matches yesterday, I don't think she will have enough left in the tank to beat Serena.

Prediction - Serena in 3 sets

This week has been a disappointing week for my predictions as you will see here!