Australian Open 2019 Preview – January 23rd, 2019 at 1:30 am
Both Svitolina and Osaka had to roll out three-set victories against some good challenges in the fourth round of action at Melbourne Park. They now come together to scrap it out for a place in the semi-finals. The winner of this will have the unenviable task of facing either Karolina Pliskova or Serena Williams in the final four.
Naomi Osaka v Elina Svitolina odds*
Naomi Osaka 4/6
Elina Svitolina 6/5
* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 21st, 2019 at 5:31 pm)
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This should be a pretty good contest. Osaka, last year’s US Open champion had to overcome a big early setback in her fourth-round match against 13th seed Anastasija Sevastova. Osaka dropped the first set, but then managed to gather herself to win the next couple of sets fairly comfortably. Once she had broken her opponent in the second set, the momentum all shifted to Osaka and she didn’t let up.
Osaka did also drop the first set of their third round match against Su Wei Hsieh and it could be a long way back if she loses the first against Svitolina in this quarter-final challenge. Osaka has now bested her best-ever finish at the Australian Open, which was a fourth-round appearance last season. She is going to up against a gritty opponent in Svitolina.
Svitlana was up against Madison Keys in her fourth-round match at Melbourne Park and this was a match that really had some big swings. Svitolina was impressive in taking the first set but then she was blown away in the second, only getting one game on the board. But the Ukrainian got things back together to power her way to a 6-1 win in the final set.
Having watched Svitolina throughout the tournament, she looks extremely focused and well dialled-in to her game. She looks to have a good spring in her step and has not looked like losing any confidence in herself. She is back in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, the stage at which she fell last season. The youngster has yet to make it past the quarterfinals of any previous Grand Slam appearance.
Head to head
These two have met five times before and two of those meetings were last year. Svitolina won both of those, the first in Dubai and the second in Miami, both on hard court. They have met once before at the Australian Open, with Osaka taking a straight sets victory in their 2016 R64 meeting. Overall in the head to head it is Svitolina who leads 3-2.
Prediction
We are going against the grain and are going to predict that Svitolina can reach her first semi-final in a Grand Slam. We have seen a lot of good stuff from her and focus from the Ukrainian and she has a bit of fire in her belly it would seem. We are going to predict the underdog value as the 6/5 quote on her looks value* (betting odds taken from bet365 on January 21st, 2019 at 5:31 pm).
