The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix tournament rolls on with the second round in Stuttgart and so do our tennis picks. Seeded players begin their campaigns after getting a bye in the first round, so we’re going to see the action ramp up on Wednesday. The familiar rust-versus-rest question will enter into some matches, and a few of them are included here on this card.
On Tuesday, we saw all of the singles matches end in straight sets. Laura Siegemund beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-0, 7-5 to cash in for our tennis picks. We also saw Petra Kvitova smoke Louisa Chirico 6-0, 6-0. Chirico couldn’t even win a single came. We also cashed with Ana Ivanovic as she had no real challenges with Carina Witthoeft. And lastly from our Tuesday picks, we won with Carla Suarez Navarro, who lost only three games to Oceanie Dodin. The only other match from Tuesday saw Annika Beck crush Camila Giorgi.
Garbine Muguruza vs. Timea Babos
This match is a rust-rest test. Muguruza is the number three seed. She sat out in the first round while Babos beat Germany’s Sabine Lisicki. You could look at that Lisicki-Babos result in two basic ways. You could first say that since Babos beat a German player on German soil, she can handle the crowd and the emotional aspects of a match. On the other hand, Lisicki is notorious as a player who does really well at Wimbledon, and barely does anything else in tennis during the season. This isn’t 100-percent true, but it’s mostly true. Beating Lisicki on clay is not that impressive. It’s a good win over a talented player, but it’s not much more than that. Muguruza has reached a Wimbledon final and a French Open semifinal. She dragged through a lot of the winter hardcourt season, so moving to clay (she was a citizen of Venezuela before declaring citizenship under Spain in recent years) could give her a fresh mental start and a feeling of added comfort.
Babos is probably playing well enough to take this match to three sets, but Muguruza probably has enough game and enough motivation to be able to win this in the end. To Muguruza with your tennis picks.
Pick: Muguruza in three sets
Angelique Kerber vs. Annika Beck
This is a matchup in which Beck will be confident after a routine dismissal of a big-hitting player, Italy’s Camila Giorgi. Beck is playing in front of her home fans in Germany, and against other highly-seeded players, she would probably stand a good chance of winning. However, going up against a fellow German, and not just any German, but the No. 2 seed and the reigning French Open champion will make this a very difficult match for Beck to win. Angelique Kerber is playing the kind of tennis some expected – and many others hoped for – years ago. She won in Australia, and she played a tough semifinal against Victoria Azarenka in Miami before falling short. She’s putting together good results and is blending her court coverage with consistent groundstrokes. She should move through this match, though she might be a bit worn down after playing in Charleston, where she retired in the semifinals due to feeling unwell on court.
Since this is the first match of the tournament, Kerber probably has enough energy to win. One should not pick Kerber to win the whole tournament, though. Take her with your tennis picks to get the job done here.
Pick: Kerber in three sets
Andrea Petkovic vs. Kristina Mladenovic
This is a match which could go either way. Petkovic is a former French Open semifinalist, playing at home in Germany. Mladenovic is a U.S. Open quarterfinalist and a player who recorded a solid 2016 season. There’s not a lot of daylight between these two players, but Petkovic is noted for being erratic, so give the nudge to Mladenovic in a close one. Take her with your tennis picks.
Pick: Mladenovic in three sets
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