The Brazil Cup tennis tournament dives into the second round and so do our tennis picks. A total of 14 first-round matches were played on Monday, and the top four seeds in the field survived in Florianopolis, Brazil. Only four of the 14 matches on the day required three sets. The main seeded casualty was a home-nation player, Brazil’s Teliana Pereira, who couldn’t summon up her best tennis at the start of the tournament, perhaps succumbing to a combination of rust and nervousness. To those who took her with their tennis picks, they were pretty disappointed as she wasn’t very competitive. She won just five games in the entire match as Lyudmyla Kichenok worked her over.
With that aside, let’s move on to Tuesday. Here are our tennis picks for the day.
Olga Savchuk vs. Monica Puig
Puig had been putting together a reasonably good season, with some solid results on clay and grass heading into the hardcourt summer. Then, however, she lost her edge, losing in the second round in Washington, D.C., and then getting bounced in the first round of the Rogers Cup in Montreal last week. Her loss in Montreal was to Naomi Broady, who is ranked 81st on the tour. Puig is 37th. That’s a bad loss, no matter how you try to rationalize it or come to terms with it. Puig just didn’t take to hardcourts. She might have found it hard to adjust to the surface, and players who might have struggled against Puig earlier in the season on other surfaces might have felt more comfortable this time around, enough to produce a win.
At any rate, though, Puig is now back on clay in Brazil. She moved very smoothly through her opening-round victory, suggesting that this slower surface actually enhances her power hitting by enabling the ball to sit up for her. On the faster surfaces, Puig is doing too much chasing. She’s not able to create enough time to set up her groundstrokes. Puig, the third seed at this event, has shown that she’s not a lock to beat a lower-ranked player, but just the same, playing on clay is likely to help her here. Take Puig with your tennis picks.
Pick: Puig in straight sets
Jelena Jankovic vs. Ana Bogdan
This is a match in which Jankovic is both the top seed in the tournament and a wild card. She accepted a late entry into the tournament, and really, there’s not much of a downside to Jankovic’s move. Formerly one of the top players in the world, Jankovic has fallen into the lower levels of women’s tennis. She rarely gets out of the first two to three rounds of a tournament these days. She even entered the International level Swiss Open a few weeks ago and couldn’t beat a relatively obscure player in the opening rounds. Because she’s lost so early in tournaments this season, she hasn’t played much, so it makes sense for her to play here. She can easily lose – we’ve seen it – but she should be able to beat Ana Bogdan, who has never done that much on tour. On the year, Bogdan is just 3-3 in main draws, although she has found success in the smaller events (going 16-6 in non-main draws). Still, Jankovic is the better play for your tennis picks in this spot.
Pick: Jankovic in three sets
Nao Hibino vs. Veronica Cepede Royg
This is a match in which Hibino is the seeded player, at No. 7, but Cepede Royg, from Paraguay, is playing on her home continent and is occupying a position that will probably be more comfortable for her. This is a close one, but go with Cepede Royg.
The concern here is that Hibino just hasn’t had a very good year – especially on the hard courts. Overall, she is just 9-15 on the year and 6-9 on hard courts. As for Royg, she hasn’t been great either but is 2-2 on the hard courts and is 6-6 in main draws this year. Take her with your tennis picks.
Pick: Cepede Royg in three sets
