Sara Errani vs Irina Bara Prediction, Odds, Form, H2H, 4/5/24

Our second preview for Friday’s action comes from the Copa Colsanitas Zurich. It’s been a rainy week at times, but the organizers have managed to keep the schedule on track for the most part. Let’s take a deeper look at Sara Errani vs Irina Bara, who go toe-to-toe for a spot in the final four on the weekend.

Bara’s win probability stands at 29.2% while Errani is favored to win at 1.36 odds. The handicap is 3.5 games and the total games line is 22.5. We’ve got more tennis betting tips up for Friday’s quarterfinal action over on our expert insights page.

Errani vs Bara Prediction

• Prediction: Errani -4.5 Games
• Best Odds: 1.92
• Bookmaker: Pinnacle
• Stakes: 5/10

Odds as at 1:00 am UK Time on April 5th, 2024. Odds may now differ.

What a draw for Errani. The WTA 250 in Bogota normally draws a weaker field, but to get an out-of-form Sara Sorribes Tormo that she’s never lost to in the second round and then Bara, who has been terrible of late and has even less to her game than Errani, in a quarterfinal? What a chance for the 36-year-old who has ground her way back up to the world’s top 120 to reach a tour-level semifinal.

Errani has very little to her game in terms of attacking tennis, but she may be the most consistent player on tour from the baseline. She also works hard to place her serves well and put some spin on them to make them less attackable. Further, we saw her come to net early and often when she had pulled Sorribes Tormo off the court, indicating a tennis IQ that I don’t believe we’ve seen from the Romanian.

Put frankly, Bara relies on her opposition to make mistakes to win. Errani also uses that as one way to win, but finds ways to try and manufacture points won herself as well. I’ll side with her to win this one in a lopsided fashion. Our Errani vs Bara best bet is for Errani to cover the 4.5-game handicap.

Sara Errani Recent Form

After a respectable 8-6 record on hard courts (though many of those wins were in qualifying), Errani is back on her preferred clay court surface. She’s done a solid job getting through her first two matches, only dropping one set along the way (and she led 4-2 in that set against Sorribes Tormo).

Her refusal to commit unforced errors works so well on this surface and at altitude, where many players overhit in the thinner air, she’s perfectly suited to wait out mistakes from others.

Her opponent in this match doesn’t really commit many mistakes herself, but Errani has more to her game than just that. She slices well, pulling players in to open lanes for passing shots. She works the ball side-to-side and when she sees that she’s hit a shot near the tram lines in play, she’s quick to come to net to take that defensive return early and put it away easily.

Considering how poor Bara has been this year (and even this week despite having two wins), I think Errani should actually be able to hold serve a decent percentage of the time since her opponent doesn’t have the ability to pounce on the slower serves and hit winners or flip control of the points.

On return? She should break even more often than she normally does – which is a lot.

Errani has worked hard in the last several months to re-establish herself after a terrible spell. We should see her rewarded with a semifinal at the WTA 250 level (or above) for the first time in a long while.

Irina Bara Recent Form

Prior to this week, Bara has won just two matches all season. One in her first tournament of the year in Australia, and the other against a no-name player in India (she was a 1.01 favourite). The other eight matches saw her lose, and far more often than not lose badly.

She has no attacking prowess to her game, hits what are effectively two second serves, struggles with double faults and has been entirely reliant on opponents hitting errors to win points.

Even in the last round, she was two points away from losing by a six-game margin against Laura Pigossi and then faced match point before a rain delay, comeback and win in three sets against a banged up Pigossi.

Her first round match also featured an opponent that needed a medical timeout at some point during the match and a deficit for her of 2-6 before scoring the comeback.

I’m not sold on her form this week, I don’t like this matchup for her and I don’t think that she can rely on Errani breaking down physically or from a consistency standpoint.

Sara Errani vs Irina Bara H2H – Stat of the Match

These two have played twice on clay in the past, splitting a pair of three setters. With how poor Bara has been and how much her serve has regressed since those meetings, I’m of the firm belief that an in-form Errani will win this rubber match quite easily.

Bara’s hold percentage has dropped year after year at the main tour level since 2020, and seeing what I have from her three matches in the last two weeks, I’m not surprised. That first serve looks more like a second serve and her double fault percentage is far too high for someone that takes very few risks from the service line.

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