SBO | BLOGABET | 24.02.2018
18:00 МСК.
Svitolina E. - Kasatkina D. | 2:0 | 1,88
Elina Svitolina defeated Angelique Kerber for the fifth time in a row to return to the final of Dubai Championships, where she is the defending champion. The German made too many errors for her own good as Svitolina wrapped up the match (6-3 6-3) in 85 minutes without much twists and turns.
This season has been so far excellent for Svitolina who is looking to back up her 2017 season where she won five titles, the most on WTA tour for the year. Those five titles also include three Premier 5 titles, one of which was WTA Dubai. In the first two months of 2018, Svitolina, in addition to reaching Dubai final, has also won a Premier title at Brisbane and progressed to the quarterfinal in Melbourne.
Daria Kasatkina secured her season's second Top 5 win after saving three match points against the world #3 Garbine Muguruza in the dramatic semi-final. After Muguruza failed to serve out the match, Kasatkina forced a second set tiebreak, where the Russian had to save the match points. The third set, however, was complete dominance from Kasatkina as she broke the Spaniard three times to secure the win in 2 hours and 33 minutes.
This will be Kasatkina's third WTA final, and all of them have come at Premier events. She won her first career title at Charleston last year defeating Jelena Ostapenko in the final. Later in the year, she lost to Julia Goerges in a disappointing final at the Kremlin Cup (Moscow). Moreover, this final run ensures that she will finally debut as a Top 20 player next Monday and can reach as high as #16 with a title.
Svitolina holds a 2-0 head-to-head lead against Kasatkina, however, both those matches were very closely fought. In 2016 at New Haven, Kasatkina forced the third set and, in 2017 at Toronto, Svitolina edged past Kasatkina in a match where there were 15 breaks of serve from both sides (Kasatkina breaking seven times). The Ukrainian got a first-round bye this week and had spent a lot less time on court than her Russian opponent which could be an advantage for her (sets played this week, ES- 7, DK- 10).
