Svitolina vs Kontaveit 19/05/2018

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Elina Svitolina vs Anett Kontaveit

Elina Svitolina vs Anett Kontaveit Tennis Prediction

Svitolina takes on an inspired Kontaveit for the first time as the clear favorite. The Ukrainian is one of the most consistent players on tour, winning the most career titles since 2017 and five of her six losses in 2018 have come to current or former top 10 players.

Elina Svitolina News

Elina Svitolina gets closer to her title defense with a sixth consecutive win over former #1 Angelique Kerber (6-4 6-4) in the quarterfinals. After trailing the first set 4-2, she bounced back to prevail over Kerber inside 90 minutes, winning the last four games.
Svitolina arrived at Rome with a 2-2 record in this year’s clay season, losing to Garcia (Stuttgart) and Suarez Navarro (Madrid). She started the week with a comfortable win over #36 Martic (6-1 6-2) and a comeback win against #13 Kasatkina (0-6 6-3 6-2) on Thursday.
The world #4 owns a 40-17 career record at Premier 5 level. It includes the title run at 2017 Rome, for which she had to defeat three top 10 players in a row (#2 Pliskova, #3 Muguruza and #6 Halep). That was the first time a Ukrainian made a final at this event.
Apart from Rome, Svitolina has Marrakesh (2015) and Istanbul (2017) as her only other clay titles. She is seeking to be the fifth player to defend a Rome title since 2000. In her career, she has twice defended a title, Baku (2012-13) and Dubai (2017-18).
Svitolina, who is one of three players to have won multiple titles this season, became the first player to lift three Premier 5 tournament in a single season last year (Dubai, Rome, and Toronto) since such tournaments were introduced in 2009.

Anett Kontaveit News

Anett Kontaveit continues her excellent form in the clay season, recording her second consecutive top 10 victory of the week with a solid win over the Australian Open champion and former #1 Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets (6-3 6-1) in an hour and 19 minutes.
The powerful Estonian struck 23 winners throughout her second Rome quarterfinal match, dwarfing the Dane’s nine. Moreover, she broke the second seed’s serve six times, while sustaining a first serve win percentage of more than 80% in the entire week.
The win over Wozniacki was Kontaveit’s second top 5 win in her career, having previously defeated #1 Kerber en route to the Rome quarterfinal last year, as a debutante and qualifier. Next week, Kontaveit is guaranteed a top 25 debut, but top 20 with a title victory.
Kontaveit started the clay season having won one match since the Australian Open fourth round. She advanced to the Stuttgart final four with marathon wins over Pavlyuchenkova and Mladenovic, while at Madrid, she defeated #9, Venus Williams, to reach the third round.
Looking to be the first Estonian to reach the Rome finals, Kontaveit started the campaign with impressive straight-set wins over former #9 Vandeweghe (6-1 6-1), former French Open champion Kuznetsova (7-5 7-5) and 1998 Rome champion Williams (6-2 7-6).

Tennis Prediction: Elina Svitolina
Odds: 1.53

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