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Today we are going to look in more detail at the WTA encounter between the world number 99. Camila Giorgi and the world number 15, Elina Vesnina.
This will be a First Round match, played on the clay courts at the Internationaux De Strasbourg, France. This decorated event has had a number of high profile winners over the years, Maria Sharapova, Sam Stosur, Alize Cornet and Francesca Schiavone have all lifted the trophy here. Last years winner, Caroline Garcia will be the home favourite again, and she will start her defence today against the American Jenifer Brady.
It’s Giorgi and Vesnina that we will concentrate our attentions on today though, in what will most certainly be a hard-hitting, winner-filled contest between two unpredictable but very entertaining players. Vesnina leads the Head to Head 2-0, both wins were on hard courts though, including a comprehensive straight sets victory in New Haven, USA in August 2016. Giorgi has already played two qualifying matches here, beating Dayana Yastremska and Myrtille Georges, so she should be used to the conditions. This will be Vesnina’s first match here since her disappointing straight sets loss to Qiang Wang in Rome last week. The Russian has struggled during the clay court swing this year, winning just won of her five matches so far.
Let’s start our statistical breakdown by analysing the players recent clay court serving stats. Giorgi has won 58% of her service points (Tour average 56%) and held serve 74% of the time (Tour average 63%). Vesnina has won 54% of her service points and held serve 55% of the time. So, we can see that Giorgi certainly has the better serve and she should earn plenty of free points on that today. She will also go after Vesnina’s second serve, so it’s important that the Russian maintains a high first serve % or she could be in for a long afternoon.
As far as the recent return of serve stats on the clay are concerned, Giorgi has won 45% of her return points (Tour average 45%), 48% of her break points (Tour average 46%) and opponents have held serve 60% of the time against her (Tour average 63%). Vesnina has won 43% of her return points, 33% of her break points and opponents have held serve 71% of the time against her. Vesnina will need to improve on these numbers in order to be competitive on return today, especially the break point conversion %, she shouldn’t get too many break point opportunities today, so she will need to make those she does get count.
Both will be attacking aggressively off the ground, with Giorgi having the slightly more fire power. Vesnina however will be far more consistent and that consistency may well be enough today if Giorgi’s serve is off and she can take any break points that she generates. I do however feel like this match is on Giorgi’s racket. Despite the disparity in the rankings, Giorgi is the better clay court player and if she plays her best today i feel like she can be victorious.