Karolina Pliskova vs Victoria Azarenka Prediction & Betting Tips - WTA Wimbledon Championships

Prediction published on 03/07/2018, 05:31  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 05/07/2018 at 03:45 in Tennis Predictions

Karolina Pliskova is seeded eighth in this tournament but won't be relishing her second round match. She takes on Victoria Azarenka who is a former world number one ranked player and someone no one wanted to get drawn against, certainly not this early in the tournament. Pliskova had a difficult enough time getting past wild card British player Harriet Dart in the first round. She won the first set on a tie-breaker, dropped the second 6-2 and then won the deciding set 6-1.  Pliskova is a former world number one just like her opponent but has never made it past the second round at Wimbledon in seven attempts, indeed the last five Wimbledon tournaments have seen her knocked out in the second round and last year she was seeded third. So far this year she has won a clay tournament in Stuttgart and reached the semi-finals in Madrid beating Azarenka in three sets in the last 32. On grass Pliskova reached the quarter finals at Eastbourne before losing to 45th ranked Arnya Sabalenka.

Victoria Azarenka is ranked 87th in the world at present. The low ranking is due to her missing several tournaments due to personal issues regarding her child. Unlike Serena Williams, Wimbledon didn't give her a seeding despite being a former world number one  She has reached two semi-finals and two quarter-finals at Wimbledon but her last time in the quarters was 2015. She made it through to the fourth round last year before losing to Simona Halep Her best performance this year was a semi-final at the Miami Open where she defeated Pliskova in straight sets in the last eight.  Her only grass court warm-up saw her lose in the last 32 to Lucie Safarova in Mallorca. This is a real tough game to predict but take a chance on Azarenka to get the win over an opponent who has a poor Wimbledon record.