tennis | Friday, January 13, 2023 1:53 PM

Friday Tennis Best Bet: WTA Adelaide, Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina

Jon Reid

Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina Best Bet: Friday, January 13th

It was a firecracker of an opening two sets that saw Sofia Kenin and Elisabetta Cocciaretto go toe-to-toe, before the Italian pulled away in the third.

Friday sees a pair of finals on the WTA Tour (it will be Saturday down under in the Australian time zones), and we’ll preview the one featuring Belinda Bencic and Daria Kasatkina

In this article:

Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina Preview
Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina Best Bet

Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina Preview

January 14th, 5:30 (UK Time)

What a start to the year for Bencic, whose game should be – and to this point, has been – right at home on quicker hard courts.

With nearly a decade of tour-level experience, despite being just 25 years old, we’re still waiting for Bencic to take that next step and look to be a real threat at the grand slam level. At the moment, she’s firmly in that territory as the “Happy Slam” approaches.

With decent pace behind her groundstrokes and her first serve, her improved movement and court coverage and the rare game style she employs, taking the ball so early and on the rise, the Swiss is certainly a dark horse candidate to pip the title in Melbourne in a few weeks time.

In tennis, the name of the game is to take time away from your opposition in as many ways as possible. Powerful groundstrokes get the job done for obvious reasons. Taking the ball as early as possible can take away a half second, since the ball is coming back earlier than expected to their side of the net. Hitting a flat ball versus one with heavy topspin helps as well, considering it takes less time to travel to the other side of the net. Finally, creating angles forces your opponent to run more to get to the ball and gives them less time to set up their next shot.

Bencic does all these things well, and more importantly, she does them more effectively and more naturally than her opponent in Kasatkina.

The Russian was once seen as more of a purely defensive player, but last year it was noticeable to me that she’d added a bit of pace to her first serve. That was crucial in her success down under, where the quicker courts accentuate those serves even more.

I’m a fan of her improvement, and the fact that she’s trying to be more assertive on court, but I still have Bencic as a large favourite to take down the second Adelaide trophy of the season.

Belinda Bencic vs Daria Kasatkina Best Bet

With motivation now out of the equation, the guessing game around whether a player really cares about winning a match is firmly in the rearview mirror.

If you’re going to play on the Saturday prior to a grand slam, you may as well win the title!

With Bencic better-suited for the conditions and courts in play in this match and being in even better form than her counterpart (her lone loss was by four game to a certain Iga Swiatek at the United Cup), I have her as a four-game favourite, so I certainly see value at -3 games on the handicap at nearly even odds!