Baltacha Through To Second Round at Eastbourne

Sports Betting

Baltacha Progresses as WTA seeds tumble at Eastbourne

Some interesting developments from the WTA action at Eastbourne, as the ladies warm up for Wimbledon. As expected, the draw was just a little too tough for young Danish starlet Caroline Wozniacki, as she fell in the first round to plucky French star Aravane Rezai (10/1 at BetFred) . Also pushing on through, was Victoria Azarenka (16/1 at Ladbrokes), who toppled four seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the first round, and now Vika, as she is more affectionately known, should progress to an expected quarter final match against Kim Clijsters (2/1 at Stan James), who blew away Yanina Wickmayer much easier than expected. There are signs of Clijsters hitting the grass court running ahead of Wimbledon, and she did start the tournament as favourite in the betting odds. She should be fresh as she has been resting since mid April, so could be timing her comeback to action to perfect. If she meets Azarenka as expected, then it should be a good test for both, and should give some betting pointers to where both are ahead of Wimbledon.

Betting tip for the tournament, Australia’s Samantha Stosur (4/1 at Bet365) is safely through to the second round, while sixth seed Flavia Pennetta had a bit of a shocker against qualifier Ekaterina Makarova. What does that mean in terms of the draw? Well, as French Open winner Francesca Schiavone went out in the first round as well, it leaves Stosur as the only seed in the bottom half of the draw, making her an even stronger bet for the AEGON International at Eastbourne, than when initially tipped here. But, even better news, is that Britain’s number one Elena Baltacha (100/1 at Ladbrokes) is through to the second round after progressing against seventh seed Na Li. Baltacha lost the first set in an incredibly close contest against the World Number 11, but the Chinese star had to retire through injury ahead of the second set, so that moved Elena forward. She now takes on China’s other tennis star, Jie Zheng (22/1 at Bet365) in the second round. If she gets through that, then she will probably meet Samantha Stosur, which, from a tennis point of view, one would really fancy seeing.

One other piece of WTA Tennis news ahead of Wimbledon, is that World Number 5, Elena Dementieva has, sadly, had to pull out of the Grand Slam through injury. The calf injury, which she picked up in the semi final of the French Open (from which she had to retire) will sadly keep her out of this year’s tournament. That is a huge shame for the Russian, who would have been up there challenging for the honours, after reaching the semi finals for the past two years there.

Match Odds
Jie Zheng to win: 4/11 at Bet365
Elena Baltacha to win: 9/4 at Ladbrokes