The biggest story of yesterday was definitely the withdrawal of Victoria Azarenka from the tournament. The top half of the draw opened up even more as the 4th seed Johanna Konta, the Australian Open semifinalist and the seventh seed Danka Kovinic made exits. The only seed remaining in the top half is this tournament’s No. 6, Johanna Larsson who will face Dominika Cibulkova. In the bottom half, all seeds that were in the second round advanced, that is Yanina Wickmayer, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sloane Stephens. The only unseeded player in the bottom half, is the wild card Naomi Osaka.
Johanna Konta got through an ordeal of a match the round before against Anett Kontaviet, and the player set before her, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni did not look much easier, as she routinely beat Irina Falconi 6-2 6-3 the previous round. The match was looking pretty good for Konta, and despiting being broke once, she broke her opponent 3 times and had a lead of 5-2. She lost one of the breaks the following game but still managed to win the set 6-4. The second set was pretty horrible for Konta, as she was down 1-5, she saved 3 set points and looked like she was getting back in the set, but lost it on her service game. Konta had only won 29% of points after her first serve. Konta was once again in a bad situation being 1-5 down with two breaks. However, she managed to rally back to 5-5, saving 2 match points along the way. After leading 40-15 on Lucic-Baroni’s serve, she couldn’t get the break despite having 3 break points, and that’s what most probably caused her to lose her serve to 0 at 5-6, thus losing the match.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni – Johanna Konta 4-6 6-2 7-5
My predictions for the quarterfinal matches:
Dominika Cibulkova – (6) Johanna Larsson– Despite her lower ranking, Cibulkova is wildly favored by the
bookmakers. One of the factors that plays into this match is definitely fatigue. With Larsson having to play against Shelby Rogers for 2 hours and 14 minutes is definitely playing into Cibulkova’s cards, who received a walkover from Victoria Azarenka. Larsson does have a similar style to Dominiguez Lino, a bit more controling and a better mover, but still similar and with Cibulkova double bageling her last opponent, I think she will dominate this match as well. I expect Cibulkova to get through this match in straight sets, somewhat along the lines of 6-4 6-4.
Prediction: Cibulkova wins 2-0
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni – Christina McHale- To both players this is so far their best result this year. Both women managed to pull of upsets over seeded players yesterday, Konta and Kovinic respectively, and they are now to play each other for the semifinals. McHale leads the head-to-head 3-1, but Lucic-Baroni won their last match in Brisbane last year 6-3 6-0. The other meetings happened more than 5 years ago. My favorite for this match is the more experienced and 10 years older, Lucic-Baroni. Her win over Konta was more assuring than McHale’s wins over Kovinic and Watson and I expect her to take the edge.
Prediction: Lucic-Baroni wins 2-1
(8) Yanina Wickmayer – (3) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova- Wickmayer had a much tougher road to the quarterfinals, having to play two 3 set matches. Pavlyuchenkova seems to be in a good form, getting through the first round with a retirement and in the second beating Glushko 6-2 6-1. Even though Wickmayer is leading the head-to-
head 2-1 and won the last two matches, I still believe that Pavlyuchenkova will win this match fairly easily. Their last meeting was at the 2015 Australian Open, which Wickmayer won in 3 sets. However, Pavlyuchenkova was slumping at that time and right now she’s playing much better.
Prediction: Pavlyuchenkova wins 2-0
(WC) Naomi Osaka – (2) Sloane Stephens- For me, this is one of the tougher matches to call, despite 90 place ranking difference. Stephens really hit the highs and the lows this year already, first winning the title in Auckland, then losing in the first round of Australian Open to Qiang Wang, Now she had quite a scare against Louisa Chirico, when she lost the first set 1-6 but managed to get back. In her second round, she beat Olga Govortsova in straight sets. Osaka is yet to lose a set in this tournament, beating both Bertens and Duque-Marino in straight sets. As we saw at the Australian Open where she beat Svitolina, when at her best, Osaka could easily be a Top 30 player, and I definitely expect her to get there in the future. I expect Osaka to make the upset, and if she can keep her focus she definitely can do it against Stephens. It will be a tough match, I predict something like 6-4 6-7 6-3.
Prediction: Osaka wins 2-1
