The first Grand Slam title of the year will be won on Saturday when the reigning Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina meets Aryna Sabalenka inside the Rod Laver Arena in the final of the Australian Open.
These two women have big games and it could be that the result is dependent on which one can impose it on the other the best or the quickest. These are two of the best players in the game so there is no reason to expect anything other than a cracking final.
Elena Rybakina
The Kazakh ace Elena Rybakina has a huge advantage going into this final in that she has tasted success in a Grand Slam. You could argue that the Wimbledon title she won carried less pressure with no ranking points and was made easier by the players who couldn’t attend the event but she still played might well to win that title, as she has done to reach this final. Rybakina has a huge serve and heavy groundstrokes so her success is no surprise.
The impressive thing about Rybakina this week is she didn’t stop after defeating the runaway world number one Iga Swiatek. Sometimes we see a player have an emotional high victory like that and then not follow it up but that wasn’t the case with her. Since beating the Pole, Rybakina has seen off the challenges of Jelena Ostapenko and Victoria Azarenka and she has seen them off in fine style. She looks like she is going to take a lot of beating.
Aryna Sabalenka
Aryna Sabalenka will be playing in her first Grand Slam final here but she is the player of the year so far and goes into this match still yet to lose a single set in 2023. She has played 10 matches and 20 sets and won the lot and looks to be in insane form. The positive is that she is blowing opponents away and building confidence all the time. The negative is that she hasn’t been tested for a while and nobody truly knows what she has inside her when she is.
Sabalenka has come through a fairly tough draw this week. She beat the other winner to herself from Adelaide ahead of this event in Belinda Bencic and also took care of Elise Mertens and Magda Linette who were playing well going into those matches. The key thing for the Belarusian will be that she gets into this final early because there are sure to be nerves involved in what is the biggest night of her career so far.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Head-to-head
These two women have met four times in the past with Aryna Sabalenka coming out on top in three of them to the one of Rybakina. Three of those matches were on a hard court and it is 2-1 to Sabalenka in that regard but it is the Wimbledon champion who won their most recent meeting in the World Tennis League just over a month ago. This will be the first time they have met in a final but it is the second time they have faced each other in a Grand Slam after Sabalenka came through at Wimbledon in 2021.
Betting
All four of the matches these two women have played have gone to a deciding set and in a final which I think will be decided by the fine margins I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we need a third set to separate these two clean hitting women once again. If there is an edge it might go to Elena Rybakina given that she has played in a Grand Slam final and got over the line in it whereas this is the first time that Aryna Sabalenka will have played in a match of this magnitude.
The games line for this final is 22.5 which feels a little low between two elite servers anyway when you would imagine that in these conditions tiebreaks are perfectly possible, especially when you consider that they were both taken to a tiebreak in the opening set of their semi-finals. These two are more than competent at holding serve but you would argue both have dips in their game as well which might allow for some ebb and flow. Whether we need three sets or two tight ones I think this game line gets covered.
Tips
Back Over 22.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back it here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2023
