Emma Navarro vs Storm Hunter Prediction, Picks, Odds, Stats, H2H, 3/22/24

To round out our trio of women’s previews at the Miami Open, we’ll go over a less-heralded Emma Navarro vs Storm Hunter match that may not have the star power of the other two, but still provides a good opportunity to try and attack a poor price. Hunter’s win probability is only 26% while Navarro is favored to win at 1.30 odds. The handicap is 4.5 games and the total games line is 20.5. Our Navarro vs Hunter predictions are for Hunter to win a set and to win the match.

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Navarro vs Hunter Prediction: Lefty Undervalued in Favoured Conditions

• Predictions: Hunter +1.5 sets & Hunter to win
• Best Odds: 2.02 & 3.85 
• Bookmaker: Pinnacle
• Stakes: 2/10 & 2/10

Odds as at 1:30 am UK Time on March 22nd, 2024. Odds may now differ.

Some people may go through losing stretches like this and look to find cheap, easy winners to ease their minds and move away from betting underdogs and looking for plays where the percentages are off. I’m not one of those people.

I’m a big fan of Hunter’s game on a quicker court, and since she’s started focusing on singles more, I think she’s shown she’s much better in the right conditions than the markets give her credit for.

She has a nice lefty serve, can play effectively at the net, and can hit those flat forehands that aren’t just pacy, but also skid through the courts and make them tough for opponents to track down.

Navarro has been one of the big surprises of the last six to seven months, and she’s just continued to win, but I just don’t see the dominance in her game that I need to see to make a player a dominating favorite odds-wise like this.

Read on for more expert insights.

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Emma Navarro Miami Open 

After playing over 80 matches in 2023, the 22-year-old former NCAA player has already racked up 24 matches in 2024, playing what is now her eighth tournament of the season.

That’s a lot of tennis for the American, who just seems to keep winning.

At the end of last season, she was down in South America racking up wins against weak fields at events that still awarded a decent amount of points, leading many – including myself – to believe her ranking was slightly inflated.

She’s used the start to this season to disprove that, consistently beating tour-level pros and even taking down back-to-back Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka.

Her backhand is already one of the more reliable ones on the women’s circuit and she’s got an incredible tennis IQ and ability to play consistent tennis and work the court that is rare in most players her age.

As I alluded to above though, I’m just not sold on her having enough raw power or the weapons to be deserving of these kinds of odds that give her opponent – a competent player in her own right – just over a 25% chance to come away victorious.

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Storm Hunter Miami Open

From her home slam to a WTA 125K event to back-to-back-to-back WTA 1000s. It certainly has been an interesting schedule for Hunter, one that was surely made with the proximity of Mumbai to Australia in mind, prior to her heading to the Middle East and then to the United States.

Smart move too, seeing as she reached the final in Mumbai (she really should have beaten her opponent in that final too) and has since come through qualifying in Dubai and here in Miami. Combine that with her qualifying campaign and main draw wins in Melbourne, and she’s racked up 15 victories to start the season.

Now, much like Navarro at the tail end of last year, many of her wins have come against some easier competition, but she’s also defeated one of the best prospects in the game and plenty of players in the 50-100 range in the world rankings.

Her game should fare well in the conditions, and she shouldn’t be starved of break chances against Navarro, whose first and second-serve stats aren’t anything to write home about. If she can hit her spots, and follow up with her plus-one forehands, she should be able to keep the proceedings close and potentially pull off the upset.

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Navarro vs Hunter H2H – Stat of the Match

As much as Navarro has played in the last few months, she hasn’t crossed paths yet with the southpaw from down under.

Navarro is still fairly new to the WTA Tour scene, while Hunter is still pretty new herself to the singles circuit, having spent a long while as one of the world’s premiere doubles players, but not having the ranking in singles to play all the biggest tournaments.

Elo-wise, Navarro’s consistent winning and impressive showings against some of the best have pushed her to ninth in the world when it comes to the blended ratings on hard courts. That is clearly what is driving this price, but as much as I respect Tennis Abstract’s work on these ratings, I’m going to have to disagree that at the moment, she’s the ninth-best player on hard courts in the world (eighth if we’re talking about the raw hard court data).

Hunter may be well behind, but her mark of over 1,700 is still respectable and I do think she’ll continue to close that gap as she plays more and more on the main tour.

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