tennis | Monday, June 27, 2022 3:24 PM (Revised at: Wednesday, June 29, 2022 2:10 PM)

Tuesday's WTA Tennis Best Bet: Wimbledon, June 28th

Jon Reid

WTA Wimbledon BEST BET: KARTAL VS KOVINIC

Tuesday, June 28th, TBD

While Monday’s backing of a young wild-card entrant from England didn’t go over so well, another opportunity to back a young Brit presents itself for the women’s selection on Tuesday.

Sonay Kartal has been a revelation this season, soaring into the world’s top-250 in the rankings.

Prior to the 2022 season, Kartal had never won a match at a level higher than the ITF $15k level (the lowest on the professional tour) – though she did reach the final in each of the three $15k events she played in 2021, winning two of them. Her ascent can be attributed to the UK Pro Tour and the hard work she’s put in.

Make no mistake, she won’t be blowing anyone off the court, but her athleticism, return game and crafty variety, along with her ability to construct points in such an intelligent manner have helped lift her to new heights.

Having used the grass season to get acclimated to the surface at the professional level (and play some top-end talent along the way), Kartal deserves to be a bit more of a favourite than the betting markets currently make her.

The biggest reason why, however, isn’t even based on her own rise and ability to find wins on the slick, green lawns.

It’s primarily due to the fact that her opponent, Danka Kovinic, really struggles with matches played off of clay or slower, higher-bouncing hard courts.

Just taking a look at her career records by surface, clay is the only one in which she has maintained a winning record. At 3-10, grass clocks in as her worst surface.

The same holds true for her statistical metrics. With a sub-70% hold plus break percentage and elo rating on grass nearly 250 points worse than her elo on clay, it’s clear Kovinic is far from being even an ITF-level player on the surface.

The low bounce keeps the ball out of her strike zone and takes away the powerful groundstrokes she can employ on the red dirt and moving on the slicker grass is also an issue for her.

This is a great opportunity for Kartal to pick up her first grand slam main draw win. While it may not be accompanied by any ranking points, for her to get such a chance at The Championships as London’s hometown pride is certainly motivation enough.