tennis | Tuesday, October 25, 2022 8:01 AM

Tuesday Tennis Best Bet: WTA Tampico, Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks

Jon Reid

Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks Best Bet: Tuesday, October 25th

It’s back to Tampico for Tuesday’s selection, as the 125K event in Mexico is the lone tournament on offer on the WTA side of things.

It will be like that through November (though next week, the year-end finals week will also see a 125K event played further north in the United States), so we’ll be able to really hone in on each event week-in, week-out.

Tuesday’s selection will come from the match between Katerina Siniakova and Alycia Parks.

In this article:

Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks Preview
Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks Best Bet

Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks Preview

October 25th, TBD UK Time

A fun matchup here between two women who have an abundance of talent, but whose lack of consistency has prevented them from realising their potential.

Now, Siniakova has obviously achieved plenty, and Parks is still relatively young, but neither has really reached the heights they’re capable of.

Siniakova has that well-rounded, all-court game that many players wish they had. She can move well, and has a decent, though not overpowering, serve, strong forehand and elite net play (she’s one of the best doubles players we’ve seen in a long time – more on that in a minute). The knock on her? The erratic nature of her power, and the fact that when things aren’t going her own way, she’s more than willing to pack it in and give up lopsided set scorelines.

From time to time it looks as though she knows darn well that she’s not at the most important of events as well. Letdowns are a frequent occurrence with her, and this spot is no different. Coming off a week at the 1000-level Guadalajara event and the week prior to the year-end finals (she’ll be there for the doubles competition with her countrywoman, Barbora Krejcikova), one has to question just how motivated she is to make a run at a 125K event in Tampico. Colour me sceptical.

Parks is more of a power-oriented player, whose game is heavily predicated on how well she’s landing her forehand.

When it’s off, she’s struggling to string wins together at the ITF level. When it’s clicking? She’s able to qualify for, and reach the quarterfinals of, WTA 500 events. Take, for example, her run in Ostrava a few weeks back. She was able to shock both Karolina Pliskova and Maria Sakkari in the main draw and cover the spread against the red-hot Krejcikova. In fact, all four of her wins came as an underdog of over 2.90 odds.

She certainly isn’t one to back as a favourite, but when she’s a sizable underdog? The ceiling of her game makes her an enticing option to back.

Katerina Siniakova vs Alycia Parks Best Bet

As always, when we look to back bets, we want to find outcomes to bet on that are undervalued in the market.

In this matchup, it’s the total games market that appears to be showing value and is likely a half-game to full game off of where it should be set.

Between Parks’ underrated abilities as a talented, but mercurial player, and Siniakova’s incredibly inconsistent style that leads to plenty of long matches, I’m more than happy to stake a position on this one to go longer than the games total the market has set.

I also don’t mind backing such a talented youngster to win at odds over 4.00. If you asked me to back a player with her talent, but that often has trouble repeating those big forehands without committing errors at a price of about 1.80? I’d likely pass. At this price, however, one would only need her to win about 23% of the time to break even. There is certainly value in backing her talent to emerge victorious at that number.