Petra Martić vs Elina Avanesyan Prediction & Betting Tips - WTA Linz

Prediction published on 29/01/2025, 08:45  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 29/01/2025 at 09:14 in Tennis Predictions

Seventh seed Elina Avanesyan faces qualifier Petra Martic in round two of the Upper Austria Linz Ladies tournament. The winner goes into the quarter-finals and a match against either fourth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova or qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich. Here's our match prediction.

This is the first time these two players have met each other in a hard court tournament. Their previous two matches (both won by Avanesyan) were won on other surfaces. 

Avanesyan is up to 48th in the live rankings, seven places below her career-high. The American (a semi-finalist in Hobart this year) had lost her last two matches before a straight sets win over Katerina Siniakova in round one of this tournament.

Petra Martic has a career-high of 14th set in 2020. The Croatian was at 125th in the latest rankings and had to qualify to get into this main draw. That was achieved without a set being dropped.

Round one saw the 34-year-old (her birthday was ten days ago) saw her beat wild card Eva Lys in three sets, dropping the middle one and is now 116th in the live rankings. Before this tournament, Martic had lost her last two matches, both in the Australian Open, losing in the qualifiers and then in round one as a lucky loser.

We tip Avanesyan to win in straight sets.