tennis | Tuesday, July 19, 2022 6:40 PM (Revised at: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 9:01 PM)

Wednesday's WTA Tennis Best Bet: Hamburg, July 20th

Jon Reid

WTA Hamburg Best Bet: Zanevska vs Ignatik

Wednesday, July 20th, 12:00 UK Time

Not a good showing from Parrizas Diaz in Italy on Tuesday. Onto Wednesday’s selection, which comes from the north of Germany in Hamburg, with Maryna Zanevska squaring off against Alexandra Ignatik.

Fresh off a strong first-round, comeback victory, I’ll be backing the Belgian to progress once against in this one.

That match – against Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova – was a tough contest, with Tomova being an absolute wall from the baseline. Nonetheless, Zanevska turned the table from being 4-6 down to come through in the subsequent sets.

The reason I like that match as a comparable is that Tomova is a more difficult opponent than Ignatik, with a very similar style. With both possessing very few weapons and soft serves, to see Zanevska be able to deal with Tomova was reassuring. Tomova can also counterpunch more effectively than Zanevska’s opponent this time in Ignatik. Not to mention, it will be hard for the Romanian to replicate the absurd consistency Zanevska was faced with last time out.

The Odesa, Ukraine-born Zanevska isn’t really a contrast in style to these two women either. She also plays a very repeatable, consistent brand of tennis, but can generate far more pace than either Tomova or Ignatik and can not only build points to hit winners but also generate excellent angles on her groundstrokes and knows when to come to the net to take time away from her opposition as well.

With the stronger serve of the two, Zanevska should also find service holds at a much higher rate.

The best illustration of the gulf talent-wise between these two is probably the fact that while Zanevska has a clay elo rating of 1,656, the Romanian hasn’t even played enough to rate in those rankings.

With Zanevska’s hold plus break percentage at tour-level on the clay over 120% for the last 52 weeks and Ignatik, once again, not having enough matches played at the top level, I’m comfortable going rather large on the legitimate WTA-tour level player against an ITF-level opponent, with a strong matchup edge.