tennis | Wednesday, December 28, 2022 8:45 AM

Thursday Tennis Best Bet: WTA United Cup, Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan

Jon Reid

Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan Best Bet: Thursday, December 29th

We’re starting the 2023 season even earlier than a normal season would begin, as the United Cup opens up play on a Thursday (locally, that is, in many parts of the world it will be Wednesday evening) with several ties from all over Australia.

For our first women’s write-up of the new season, we’ll focus on the singles matchup in Brazil vs. Italy as Beatriz Haddad Maia takes on Martina Trevisan.

In this article:

Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan Preview
Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan Best Bet

Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan Preview

December 29th, 3:00 (UK Time)

Well, as one can deduce from the markets, the tall Brazilian is a heavy favourite to win this contest, and with good reason. On clay, this pricing would be a much different story, but when you shift to a quicker surface, Trevisan’s game becomes much less effective.

Haddad Maia on the other hand has the benefit of a huge first serve, as well as the ability to back it up from the baseline, move decently for someone of her stature and also possesses the necessary consistency to avoid hitting too many errors to give the Italian an opening to win.

Trevisan, on the other hand, doesn’t have the comfort on hard courts (just take a look at her thoroughly unimpressive results on the surface), is more defensively minded and when forced to try and inject pace of her own, prone to hit a steady stream of unforced errors on her forehand wing. Throw in quicker courts giving her less time for each shot, and that problem should only be exacerbated.

Backing the world No. 15 to win may be a tad steep in terms of price, so I’ll happily look to the handicap market, which I believe is off enough to exploit.

Beatriz Haddad Maia vs Martina Trevisan Best Bet

Much like the bet on Nick Kyrgios bet against Cameron Norrie in this competition, this price seems to hinge a bit too much on the fact that they’ve split their previous two meetings (one of which was on clay – a monumentally different matchup for someone like Trevisan, who is essentially a clay-court specialist), with the hard court matchup landing right on four games in the Brazilian’s favour.

In all honesty though, with the courts playing quicker, Trevisan’s overall ineptitude on hard courts and Haddad Maia possessing the much more powerful game and ability to apply more pressure on serve, this should be a -5.5-game handicap for me given the conditions. I’m happy to attack the conservative approach from the market in the early goings of the season with a rather large stake backing Haddad Maia.