Friday sees the quarter finals at the Stuttgart Open with tournament favourite Iga Swiatek closing out the day’s play against Karolina Pliskova. It will be just the second meeting between the two with things only able to improve for Pliskova, who was defeated 6-0 6-0 in Rome on the previous occasion.
Check out all Pliskova vs Swiatek H2H stats.
Swiatek broke early in her previous match and was always in control against Qinwen Zheng, eventually taking the match 6-1 6-4. A minor blip at 4-2 in the second proved to be just that as she took the final two games of the match to move on in just under an hour and a half. “I felt like I needed to be 100% focused from the beginning to the end, to think about technique and tactics,” Swiatek said afterwards. “I’m pretty happy that I’m not rusty and I could perform good tennis, even though I had a break.”
Pliskova’s relative success here probably does come in some part down to Stuttgart not really playing like a traditional clay tournament, with the indoor conditions helping rather than hindering her. She beat Maria Sakkari easily in her opening round match before finding things much tougher against Donna Vekic, needing a third set tiebreak to get past the Croatian.
While Swiatek is unlikely to repeat the magic of her last win against Pliskova, she should not find this match too difficult even while looking a bit rusty. She should have too much variety and will eventually make the Czech move far more than she would like, something that she will not fancy after her long match in the previous round. Having already served 22 aces this week, Pliskova will need to continue serving very well if she wants to keep it close at all.
Prediction – Iga Swiatek in straight sets
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