tennis | Thursday, August 18, 2022 7:45 AM

Thursday Tennis Best Bet: WTA Cincinnati, Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens

Jon Reid

Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens Best Bet: Thursday, August 18th

Well, it’s been a rough go this week, with a subpar record and the biggest staking plays losing. Let’s look to get things back on track on Thursday, as the Cincinnati Masters combined event rolls on.

For the women’s match on Thursday from the Western & Southern Open, we’ll dig into the match between Caroline Garcia and the suddenly-resurgent Elise Mertens.

In this article:

Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens Preview
Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens Best Bet

Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens Preview

August 18th, 21:30 UK Time

These are the types of matches where short memories are necessary. First, from the standpoint that you don’t want to overvalue Mertens for defeating a player you bet on the prior round, as well as not getting too stubborn and just blindly opposing that player again.

In this matchup, however, both the matchup and price are well worth another bet against the Belgian, who has admittedly looked better this week than in some time.

The problem here, however, is that Garcia has also been better than we’ve seen her in years, and her game is far more imposing than Mertens’.

Once a top-5 player in the world, Garcia’s game had seemingly fallen off a cliff in recent times, with many believing her best tennis was behind her. It was the French Open this year, however, where the Frenchwoman really turned some heads. Despite being sent packing in the second round, her serving and ball striking was far more consistent and impressive than we’d seen for a full match in quite some time. She covered the games handicap against Keys in that loss to boot.

Equipped with a big serve, strong forehand and strong movement for someone her height, along with an elite game at the net, she’s a very well-rounded player and it’s no wonder she managed to reach the top of the game a few years ago.

Her form since Paris has been impressive, winning a grass event in Germany, making the second week at Wimbledon, reaching the semifinals in Lausanne and winning the clay event in Warsaw. Now she’s into the final 16 as a qualifier in Cincinnati and has a chance to reach a quarterfinal on every surface in the span of less than two months.

On these quicker hard courts, I’m much more inclined to back the stronger server, bigger hitter, and more in-form player. Whilst Mertens’ win over Pliskova was surprising, she’ll need to take down another strong server, but this time, she’s playing a much more dimensional player in Garcia.

Caroline Garcia vs Elise Mertens Best Bet

The other piece to the puzzle for me in being comfortable backing the 28-year-old is that it’s been a very specific type of player to beat her over the course of the last few months. Lucia Bronzetti, Alize Cornet and Marie Bouzkova are all very strong movers and absolute balls from the baseline.

Whist Mertens’ rally tolerance is strong, and she can extend rallies, she isn’t the elite defender like the three women above. As such, she’ll need to play a little more aggressively and that’s where things may get sticky – considering there just isn’t much she does better than her French counterpart.

While I’m not keen on the prospect of losing yet another wager to Mertens, this price at 1.80 is far too cheap to pass up.