She could win it all.
The whole enchilada. Seven straight matches. An inaugural Grand Slam title is absolutely, positively on the cards for Australian Open No. 4 seed, Elina Svitolina.
But then again, it’s always one match at a time, and world No. 59 Katerina Siniakova will present much more of a problem than her ranking suggests on Wednesday.
The last Grand Slam tournament of the 2017 season was the US Open, where these two players went head-to-head in the opening round.
It was a barn-burner.
Svitolina won 6-0 6-7(5) 6-3, and the match metrics provide an ideal preview as to how these two aggressive players match up against each other.
SERVING
Svitolina definitely owned the better serve in New York, having 23 per cent (20/87) of her serves unreturned, which was much better than Siniakova, who only had 8 per cent (7/84) unreturned. The US Open match boiled down to performance on second serves, where Svitolina was much more dominant than her Czech opponent.
Svitolina hit 44 second serves in that match, winning an impressive 28 (64 per cent). Siniakova overall hit less second serves (36 to 44), but could only manage to win 12 (33 per cent) of them.
WINNERS
One of the most interesting stats in tennis is winners hit. You would naturally think that the more winners the better, and whoever finishes with a superior differential in this area would always win the match. It’s simply not the case.
Siniakova hit 31 winners to Svitolina’s 26, but that’s the wrong part of the stat sheet to examine to understand who won and why.
Svitolina lost the winners battle, but she only made 47 errors (17 forced/30 unforced) to Siniakova’s 78 (27 forced/51 unforced). That’s absolutely where matches are won and lost. Unforced errors are basically birthday presents. You know you are going to get some, but you have no control over how many.
AO2018 FORM
Svitolina defeated Serbian qualifier Ivana Jorovic in the opening round 6-3 6-2. The Ukrainian won an impressive 54 per cent (39/72) of her baseline points, and was a solid 80 per cent (8/10) points won at net. Svitolina was ruthless in the short rallies of 0-4 shots, notching a 40-21 advantage. In all rallies of five shots or more, Svitolina only had a 25-24 advantage. Shorter rallies are where Svitolina creates her advantage.
Siniakova, in her opening round, squeaked out a 6-2 6-7(5) 6-4 victory over Maria Sakkari. Siniakova faced seven break points, making a very respectable six first serves in those pressure moments. Overall, Siniakova hit seven aces and only two double faults, while Sakkari was basically the opposite, with two aces and eight double faults.
PREDICTION
Svitolina in 2 sets.