Aryna Sabalenka will play against Iga Swiatek. The encounter will start on December 23 at 15:30 UK time.
Bookmaker Ratings: Prediction #1 – Handicap Swiatek (-3) – 1.69.
Bookmaker Ratings: Prediction #1 – Total Games Under 20 – 1.54.
The Polish player has played two fairly confident matches in Dubai and has shown that she is in good form at the moment. There is no doubt that Swiatek will be looking to take revenge on Aryna for her recent loss at the WTA Finals. We believe that Iga will take the upper hand due to her more consistent play.
The rivals have played each other five times over the course of the season. In three head-to-head encounters, Swiatek won in two sets. In Dubai, the Polish tennis player gave up seven games each. We don’t expect Sabalenka to be able to count on anything more today.
Aryna Sabalenka had an unstable season but managed to make it to the finals of the final tournament in the end. In the semi-finals of that tournament, she defeated Iga Swiatek (6-2, 2-6, 1-6). Such success put Aryna in fifth place in the WTA rankings.
Earlier this week, Aryna had already played one match in which she lost to Elena Rybakina.
The game turned out rather strange. Sabalenka took the first set (6-0). In the second set, she gave up almost without a fight – 1:6. In the third, which was held in the format to ten points, she lost 6:10.
Double faults which had been Sabalenka’s main problem in 2022 were rare this time with only seven.
The match against Rybakina was Aryna’s first after the break, so it’s too early to make any conclusions now.
Iga Swiatek had a very confident season and rightfully took the top spot in the world rankings by a huge margin. The Polish player has won a total of eight titles since the beginning of the year, the main ones being wins at Roland Garros and the US Open.
Iga, meanwhile, had already played two matches. The results were no surprise as she won both of them.
On Monday, the world number #1 defeated Caroline Garcia of France (6-3, 6-4).
On Thursday, she defeated the recently recovered from injury Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6-4, 6-3).
Iga also made mistakes on serve but made up for it with a classy game on the receiving end. In general, nothing new, everything goes to the fact that Iga will continue to dominate the new season.
Falcons: Novak Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov, Aryna Sabalenka, Paula Badosa.
Kites: Holger Rune, Felix Auger Aliassime, Iga Swiatek, Eugenie Bouchard.
Type of Court – Indoor Hard
Speed of Court – 8/10
Aryna Sabalenka’s Rating – 5
Aryna Sabalenka Wins/Losses in 2022 – 33/22
Iga Swiatek’s Rating – 1
Iga Swiatek Wins/Losses in 2022 – 67/9
Iga Swiatek leads with a score of 4-2 in the head-to-head encounters. The last time they met was at the WTA Finals. In that match, Sabalenka defeated Swiatek (6-2, 2-6, 6-1) in three sets.
The match will be played in Center Court, Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
We recommend checking out the odds for the World Tennis League 2022: Aryna Sabalenka vs Iga Swiatek at 1xBet.