Three picks from the second round of the Hamburg Ladies Open today, with overcast skies and a real chance of rain hanging over the clay courts at 57°F. Could be a stop-start day out there. Who do you think makes it through?
WTA MSC Hamburg Ladies Open Predictions
Alina Charaeva vs Sinja Kraus
Head-to-head: First meeting
Kraus has the ranking advantage here and on slower clay, that kind of consistency from the baseline tends to matter a lot. Charaeva at #117 hasn't done much recently to suggest she can trouble a player ranked nearly 40 spots above her, and this feels like a relatively routine progression for Kraus, even if it takes three sets.
Prediction: Kraus in 3
Oleksandra Oliynykova vs Leyre Romero Gormaz
Head-to-head: Oliynykova 1-0 Gormaz
On paper this looks comfortable for Oliynykova, ranked over 100 spots higher and with the only H2H win between them. But Romero Gormaz is a clay-court specialist who's genuinely dangerous on this surface, and Oliynykova has had a pretty quiet stretch of results lately. The ranking gap can be misleading on slow clay when one player is clearly more at home on it, and I think that's the case here. Romero Gormaz takes this one.
Prediction: Gormaz in 3
Elina Avanesyan vs Yulia Putintseva
Head-to-head: Avanesyan 0-2 Putintseva
Avanesyan is down to #208 and hasn't been on a consistent run for a while now, and Putintseva's game, all that spin and variation and refusal to panic in long rallies, suits these damp, slow Hamburg conditions well. She's won both previous meetings, including their most recent on clay, and there's no real reason to think that changes today. That said, Putintseva should be through without too many problems, though on clay with rain delays anything can shift.
Prediction: Putintseva in 3
For full predictions on ATP and WTA matches today, check out Uppset.
Credit Image: © Matthieu Mirville/ZUMA Press Wire