Cincinnati Masters : WTA
Ekaterina Makarova- Barbora Strycova
I have heard that Barbora Strycova is fun off court, on it, her persona is very different and she is always looking for something or someone to vent against and even trying to psyche herself up in front of the changing room mirror, probably results in an argument. She can be tiring to watch at times, she played well enough in Toronto last week, but was coming off a disappointing grass court campaign and is certainly not at the same level as we have seen from Ekaterina Makarova over the last three weeks. The Russian won twice for us at the Canadian Masters beating Shuai Peng and Johanna Konta and was coming off a tournament win in Washington..........
I do not feel that Johanna Konta is fully at ease on grass yet, she played a lot on the surface this summer (too much ?) and probably felt obligated to do so as a home player. Konta will be very pleased on reflection, with her run to the semis at Wimbledon, but she will surely be better suited by playing less in immediate build up and /or bypassing most of the clay court swing. I also do not feel she was 100% fit either and the fact that she did not play Stanford on her beloved hardcourts and where she was defending champion makes 2+2 equal 4 in my mind, but it could be 5 !
Stanford was her first WTA title, the courts there are tailormade for her game and deciding not to defend when the decision cost her a top 5 spot, two weeks after she gained it for the first time, seems odd. It might be correct down the line (US Open), but whether it was made purely for that reason, we cannot really know.
Konta leads Makarova 4-0, 2-0 on hardcourts, both wins coming at the Australian Open, one when the Russian was out of form, the other very close 8-6 in the 3rd set. Makarova won for us yesterday in double quick time at good odds and is 6-0 on the surface in the last two weeks and showed no ill effects (far from it) from her tournament win in Washington. She has to be more match sharp than Konta who has also fulfilled a huge number of media commitments in the last month and is worth chancing.
Makarova has five wins over top 50 players in the last two weeks on this surface, two versus top ten opponents and is near the top of her game, which when good, is top 10-20 level .
As a top 50, tall leftie, she matches up well with Strycova who is ......... 37-46 on the surface v players over 1.8m tall, 14-21 against left handers and 53-92 against top 50 ranked opponents. a combined 3-7 on h/c v all those categories, 4-11 on all surfaces and 9-21 in all games against top 50 lefties of any height. All of those, without allowing for Makarova's current form make the Russian value today and if she has no ill effects from playing so much in recent weeks she should win.
1.5 units Ekaterina Makarova -1.5 games 1.917 Pinnacle/Sportmarket Pro.
Good Luck.
