Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets. A little dry for our romantic sports enthusiasts, but sometimes the game is just that straightforward.
Oh, what a roller coaster ride tennis can be, ladies and gentlemen. On one side, you have Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the 25th seed, who's been playing a game as erratic as a sloth on a sugar rush. She's been lobbing some real victories, sure, but there's been a few times she's simply dropped the ball. Somewhere in the mix of those triumphs and downfalls, you'll find her recent straight-set win over Townsend, not to belittle the defeat she suffered at the hands of the tenacious Linette and others.
Across the net, however, stand Lin Zhu, the underdog without a seeding number to her name. You might say she’s playing a bit like a tourist driving on the left for the first time, occasionally swerving into brilliance but also crashing into a rough patch. She recently made light work of Begu in straight sets, only to face defeat against Tomljanović and others later on.
Applying good old fashioned logic, Pavlyuchenkova appears to be the clear favorite here, as is evident from the Payout Data that I promise I didn't peek at. She's ranked 25th in the tournament and those seeding numbers aren't just pulled out of the air, it is a reflection of the player's consistent performance over time. But then again, tennis isn't all about numbers. It's about the spins, the strikes, and the serves. It's about keeping your cool in the face of love-all situations.
Nevertheless, I enjoy an underdog story as much as the next commentator permanently attached to a microphone. But this isn’t a Hollywood movie, it's an unforgiving grass court. So, even though I root for the unexpected to happen in any sport, the prediction here does lean towards reality, folks.
Therefore, Albert’s Prediction: Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets. A little dry for our romantic sports enthusiasts, but sometimes the game is just that straightforward.