After the Round Robin stage, the WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai Semi-Finals take place this Saturday. Bookmakers Review breaks down the fixtures below and lists the best available odds from green listed bookmakers.
Zhang vs. Kvitova
The Wild Card – Shuai Zhang – and the two-time Wimbledon champion – Petra Kvitova – will fight this Saturday for a place in the WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai’s Final.
Petra Kvitova continues her successful journey in Zhuhai with a 6 – 1 6 – 4 victory over Barbora Strycova. As we mentioned in our Day 4 analysis, the conditions in Zhuhai clearly suit Petra’s powerful game style. Looking now to Kvitova’s numbers throughout the week, the highlight goes to her serve with an average of 0.76 aces per service game and 100% service games won.
Against all expectations, Shuai Zhang booked a place in the WTA Elite Trophy semi-finals after two outstanding performances against Timea Bacsinszky and Timea Babos. Zhang is going through the best moment on her career and after her victory in the Camellia Group, the Chinese already secured her career high ranking next week as world no.24.
This will be the 3rd career meeting between these two players with a 1 – 1 lead on the h2h. Despite Zhang’s surprising victory two years ago in Rome’s clay, Kvitova is the undeniable favourite to win this clash at 3/10 at Coral while Unibet offers 13/4 for Zhang’s triumph. Due to the low odd on Petra’s moneyline, our advice is for you to take once more the Czech’s -1.5 Set Handicap at 83/100 at Coral.
Konta vs. Svitolina
Two of the highest ranked players in Zhuhai will face each other this Saturday – Johanna Konta and Elina Svitolina.
Famous for her aggressive game style, Johanna Konta loves to compete on fast court conditions like the ones in Zhuhai. After a solid straight sets victory on her debut against Samantha Stosur, Konta dismissed Caroline Garcia in the following match by 6 – 2 6 – 2. Johanna was absolutely flawless on serve with 73.33% first serve in and winning 84.84% of the points played with her first serve.
Elina Svitolina returns to the WTA Zhuhai’s semi-finals. After her loss 12 months ago against Karolina Pliskova, Svitolina is trying to go a step further this season. Known as a fearful competitor, Elina never gives anything for free to her opponents. Svitolina’s numbers on her previous match against Elena Vesnina are a great example of that with the Ukrainian saving all the 8 break points she faced on that match.
These two players will face each other for the second time in their careers with Svitolina winning their previous encounter. However, that match took place three years ago at an ITF event when both players were still outside top 100.
This should be an exciting contest with Konta’s powerful tennis contrasting with Svitolina’s outstanding defensive skills. The bookmakers consider Konta the favourite with the British’s odds at 57/100 at William Hill while Svitolina is available at 137/100 at Bet365. Even though we agree with Johanna’s status, this should be a huge battle, which makes the Over 21.5 at 83/100 at Ladbrokes the best betting approach for this contest.
Calculators
