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Today sees us take a look at another WTA match from the clay courts of the Internationaux de Strasbourg, France. We are going to focus on the Round 2 match between the American world number 55, Shelby Rogers and the Chinese world number 50, Qiang Wang.
This is going to be the first meeting between the pair, however both have been performing well on the clay over the past couple of months. Rogers reached the Quarter Finals in Charleston, before losing to Mirjana Lucic Baroni, whilst Wang has had good runs in Madrid and Rome.
In Round 1, Rogers beat an injured Caroline Wozniacki, the Dane having to retire at the beginning of set 2 having lost the first on a tiebreak. Wang had a far less comfortable passage through, but eventually got past Risa Ozaki 6-4 3-6 6-3.
As far as serving stats are concerned from those opening matches; Rogers won 52% of points on her serve and held serve 43% of the time. This was only over the course of a single set though, so we can’t draw too much for this. Her recent clay court mean numbers look like this;Service point won 58% and hold serve 67%, these numbers are pretty good for the WTA Tour, and she’ll need to keep them high today against Wang, who can be an aggressive returner. Wang in her opening match won 58% of her service points and held serve 57% of the time, these were down on her recent clay court mean of 63% service points won and 75% service hold. She will need to improve on those numbers or she might struggle on serve today.
Looking at the return of serve; In her opening match Rogers won 61% of her return points, converted 80% of break points and her opponent held serve just 33% of the time. Again though, what with Wozniacki’s hip injury these numbers are somewhat falsified. Looking at her recent clay court mean, she’s won 44% of her return points, converted 60% of her break points and opponents have held 62% of the time against her. Wang in her opening match won 49% of her return points, 47% of her break points and her opponent held serve 50% of the time. Her recent clay court mean numbers look like this; 47% return points won, 55% break points won and opponents hold 58% of the time against her. She will need to keep these numbers high today in order to gain some traction in the Rogers service games, if she can do that and really go after the American’s second serve than she will create plenty of opportunities to break.
Both players will play from the back of the court, with Wang looking to take the ball on when she can off either wing. Wang certainly looks the better player on paper here, she’s played and won more matches on clay over the past couple of week and came through a strong test in Round 1, I think that will stand her in good stead today. Rogers will need to serve well and be aggressive on the return, if she can do that then she stands at least some chance.