tennis | Wednesday, August 3, 2022 7:35 AM

Wednesday Tennis Best Bet: WTA San Jose, Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend

Jon Reid

Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend Best Bet: Wednesday, August 3rd

It was very nice to get a win from the unlikeliest of positions, as Tereza Martincova managed to pull off the win, despite losing the first seven games of the match. Generating 18 break chances leads to good things, though!

For Wednesday’s WTA selection, it’s off to the 500-level event in San Jose, California. We’ll take a look at, and break down the match between Daria Kasatkina and Taylor Townsend.

In this article:

Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend Preview
Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend Best Bet

Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend Preview

August 3rd, 20:30 UK Time

It’s been about four months since Taylor Townsend returned to professional tennis after a prolonged absence after becoming a mother last year.

The 26-year old has impressed for the most part, but it must be said, she hasn’t really been able to beat top-50 or top-100 level players, let alone a top-15 talent like Kasatkina.

The Russian has put together an impressive year, reaching a slew of semifinals at the sport’s top level and only being eliminated from the two grand slam events she was eligible to play by the world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.

She’s always had tremendous rally tolerance, ball retrieval defensive skills and consistency in her baseline game, but in 2022, we’ve seen her improve her serve and forehand – both in terms of pace and aggressive mindset.

With her American counterpart more of a spin-centric player (not as effective on hard courts) and someone that looks to extract errors from her opposition, this matchup isn’t ideal for Townsend.

Throw in the massive step up in competition and Kasatkina should find herself moving on with ease.

Daria Kasatkina vs Taylor Townsend Best Bet

The bookmakers and markets have correctly positioned Kasatkina as the strong favourite in the 1X2 markets.

The handicap, however, is still a little generous with -4.5 games still being over 1.80 odds-wise.

For me, not only is Kasatkina better at everything than Townsend, and the more aggressive player capable of finishing points, while also owning one of the tour’s best break of serve rates (key when needing to cover elevated games handicaps), but she’s more than capable of serving up lopsided set scores.

Only the aforementioned Swiatek has doled out more 6-0 or 6-1 drubbings in the women’s game this year than Kasatkina.

Townsend has also struggled in her losses against legitimate WTA competition to cover 4.5 games up to this point (failed to do so in each of her losses this season to Xiyu Wang, Katie Volynets and Caroline Garcia).