Claire Liu vs Elena Rybakina Prediction & Betting Tips - Stanford, USA

Prediction published on 04/08/2021, 15:40  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 04/08/2021 at 16:41 in Tennis Predictions

Elena Rybakina is the second seed for the Silicon Valley Open and faces Claire Liu in round two. Rybakina will be looking to bounce back from the women's singles at the Tokyo Olympics where she missed out on a bronze medal. The world number 20 nearly beat eventual gold medalist in the semi-final and then lost the bronze medal play-off against Elina Svitolina. Rybakina has spent the year ranked between 19th and 23rd. In terms of ranking points earned this year, Rybakina is in 25th place but can climb to 22nd if repeating her recent straight sets win at Wimbledon over Liu. Recent months have seen Rybakina get to the semi-final at Eastbourne beating Elina Svitolina and the last 16 at Roland Garros, where she beat Serena Williams.

Claire Liu received a wild card to play in this tournament in San Jose. The American began this week in 108th place but up to a career high 104th after her first round victory over Dayana Yastremska. A win over Rybakina will take her into the top 100 for the first time. It took three sets for her to get that first win with the middle set lost. That took her up 16 places to 111th in the WTA Live Race listings. Liu has had success on the ITF circuit this year getting to a semi-final in Orlando where she beat top seed Daria Kasatkina. Straight after that she lost in the final of the ITF event in Florida and another one in California in her next tournament. It was third time lucky for her as May saw her win a title in Charlottesville and followed that up with another win in Charleston.  It's not been so successful for her on the WTA tour though but she did win four matches to reach the last 64 at Wimbledon where she lost to Rybakina. Back the second seed to win this in straight sets.