Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria Tennis in the Land Preview and Expert Tip: Kalinina a Level Above Big-Serving German

Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria (Tennis in the Land): Wednesday, August 23rd

Excellent stuff from Lin Zhu, who started slowly, but once she found her groove, absolutely dominated Julia Grabher, picking up a seven-game win – plenty to cash the -4 game handicap.

Tuesday’s WTA preview for Tennis in the Land from Cleveland looks at Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria.

In this article:

• Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria Expert Tip
• Anhelina Kalinina Recent Form
• Tatjana Maria Recent Form
• Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria H2H Stat of the Match
• Gamble Responsibly

Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria Expert Tip

It’s nice to see Kalinina playing some strong tennis again. It had been a while, after an injury forced her to retire in the final of the big 1000-level tournament in Rome.

For several events thereafter, the Ukrainian looked far from her best. Things seem to be turning, however (more on that in a minute), and I’m happy to back her here against the big-serving German.

Maria has feasted on lower-level competition in 2023 and the pace she does bring matches up just fine for me with Kalinina’s counterpunching abilities.

The slicing and dicing variety to her game shouldn’t bother the fairly consistent Kalinina either.

I’m not sure the market has priced the quality of competition for Maria’s wins into the market here, as I have Kalinina as a much stronger favourite than the 1.74 currently on offer.

Read on for more expert insights.

• Expert Tip: Kalinina to win at 1.74 with Pinnacle, using 5/10 stakes.

Anhelina Kalinina Recent Form

The tides seemed to have turned in recent weeks for Kalinina after the aforementioned injury with a close loss to the resurgent Sloane Stephens in Montreal, a win and then narrow third-set tiebreak loss to a top-10 player in Ons Jabeur in Cincinnati, and then a breezy win in her first match here against a decent player in Ana Bogdan.

While she may not have amassed the quantity of victories her counterpart in this one has in recent weeks, there’s no doubting the quality of her play and her opponents has been several degrees higher.

With a flat hitting style that is well-suited to taking time away from an already poor-moving Maria, as well as the way she can counterpunch the pace that Maria should provide behind her first serve, the matchup is also excellent for the 26-year-old.

It’s yet another chance to show that she’s shaken off what physical ailment she had in recent times and is ready to push for a run to the second week at Flushing Meadows.

Tatjana Maria Recent Form

It’s hard to take shots at Maria’s form, as her hard-court summer has been nearly perfect.

She’s now 9-1 since getting back onto the quicker hard courts she prefers.

The problem? Five of those wins came at a 125K event in South America where the field was rather weak, another three came in Warsaw against average or talented but inconsistent competition and her first match here saw her require a deciding set to beat a slumping Varvara Gracheva.

You can go ahead and say that I’m unconvinced.

Reaching the top-50 at 36 years old is a commendable accomplishment. I just believe that’s been a by-product of her scheduling, rather than her level.

Anhelina Kalinina vs Tatjana Maria H2H – Stat of the Match

This is the second time this season that Kalinina and Maria will have met, with the first meeting coming all the way back in January in Hobart as they were each tuning up their games for the Australian Open.

Kalinina did manage to win that one in three sets.

For the stat of the match, I’ve alluded to the quality of competition that Maria has played a few times now.

I want to focus on that, as the numbers illustrate where a lot of her success has come in 2023.

We can see Maria’s numbers drop significantly behind her serve (her primary and really only weapon) as we take a look at her overall hard-court numbers, and then progress to the top-50 and top-20. That may seem incredibly obvious, but consider the fact that Kalinina had played a lot of this year at a top-25 level and that Maria has played so few players of that calibre thanks to her scheduling of plenty of lower-tier events, and you can see why I’m so bullish on Kalinina in this matchup.

Odds as at 3:30 am UK Time on August 23rd, 2023. Odds may now differ.

RESPONSIBLE GAMBLING

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