Caroline Garcia v Johanna Konta Preview – August 28th, 2018
What a brilliant match-up we have coming in the first round of the US Open involving Britain’s top hope Johanna Konta. Konta’s track record at the US Open is pretty poor all things considered. She has just a 7-5 match record there and her back to back round of sixteen results in 2015 and 2016 is the best she has ever done at Flushing Meadows. Last year she suffered a shock first-round loss.
She has really dropped back in terms of quality output this season and there hasn’t been much sign of a recovery from her on the hard court. In Montreal at the Rogers Cup, she had a good couple of wins over Jelena Ostapenko and then Victoria Azarenka early in the tournament but fell to Elina Svitolina in the round of sixteen. She followed that up by getting knocked out in her first match in Cincinnati and then she showed up at New Haven as one of the main contenders recently and won just the one match.
Caroline Garcia v Johanna Konta Odds*
Johanna Konta 10/11
Caroline Garcia 10/11
* (betting odds taken on August 26th, 20187 at 7:48 pm)
Konta just isn’t there with her temperament and she looks a bit unfocused. That is why Garcia is going to be a threat to Konta here. The French player has only a 5-5 match record at the US Open herself and she missed last year’s event at Flushing Meadows. After a strong end to last season, she was expected to push on a bit and she is a fairly consistent performer. She reached the quarter finals of Montreal, the round of sixteen in Cincinnati and then made it to the quarte rfinals of New Haven where she was stopped by gusty Aryna Sabalenka. Garcia hasn’t earned a title this year and holds a 28-17 match record for 2018.
There is some previous between these two with Konta leading the head to head 3-2 over Garcia. Konta won the last meeting between them which was at Wimbledon last year and she has won two of their three hard court battles.
Prediction
We don’t see either of these doing enough to collect a win without dropping a set so we are going over 2.5 sets at 5/4 odds with bet365 for sure* (betting odds taken on August 26th, 20187 at 7:48 pm).
As for a winner, we like Garcia more just because she has that extra depth of grit and consistency to edge her way past this challenge. A Garcia 2-1 set win is at 10/3 odds* (betting odds taken on August 26th, 20187 at 7:48 pm).
