Maria Sakkari vs Ekaterina Alexandrova: Tournament No.1 to get to the quarter-final

Ekaterina has a very strong opponent, the tournament No.1, the Greek Maria Sakkari in the second round of the St. Petersburg Open. The athletes met each other four times before in the tour, including Russian courts, namely in Moscow, at the Kremlin Cup. In Russia, Ekaterina became the winner, and before that the Greek had won all three face-offs.

Maria played her first match in St. Petersburg only yesterday on February 8 against Potapova. The match was a two-set, Potapova gave battle to her status opponent, but lost 4-6, 4-6. It is obvious that Sakkari has yet to gain her best form, but the Greek was getting better during the match. Let us remind you that her last tournament was the Australian Open, where she reached the round of 16 only to lose to Pegula.

Ekaterina played her first match on the tournament in St. Petersburg on February 7, with her opponent an Italian tennis player Camila Giorgi. The match turned out to be quite a performance. Ekaterina confidently won the first set with a score of 6-2, but lost the second one just as easily, 1-6. It seemed that in the third set we were in for a struggle, but it never happened - 6-2 victory for Ekaterina in 33 minutes. Alexandrova had 6 aces and 12 double faults, 72% of her first serve points and 45% of her second serve points. She won 32% of points on the first serve and 22% on the second serve. Ekaterina was unstable through the course of the match, which could negatively affect her result against Sakkari.

Sakkari is not at the peak of her form yet. However, the Greek is very well prepared for the tournament in St. Petersburg. She had lost the match against Ekaterina at the end of October 2021, but she dropped out of the tournament because of an injury. And before that, Sakkari had won three matches, including one on hard court in San Jose. We believe that today Maria will get her fourth win over Ekaterina. It is doubtful that Alexandrova will even take a set. In the match against Giorgi, Maria had enough faults, it's just that Camila had even more. Sakkari plays with more concentration than the Italian. We offer the following betting options for this match: Correct Score 2-0 for 2.10; H1 (-4.5) for 2.36; Correct Score 2-0 for 2.16.