March 4 - March 17

[CzechPunter]

A big thread for the big tournament in Indian Wells!

[Psycho]

Re: March 4 - March 17 Three matches from IW qualies that I'm confident about today. Anastasija Sevastova to beat Anastasia Rodionova. 1.68 @ Pinnacle (8/10) Sevastova holds a 3-0 H2H record against Rodionova. All of their matches have been close, including couple 3-setters, yet Sevastova has always come out on top. Although her favorite surface is clay, she has done nothing on the dirt this year but reached quarter finals on hard in Pattaya. Rodionova is average player who has no outstanding skills and basically this match will be tough for her to win mentally having not beaten Sevastova in 3 previous attempts. Before her injuries, Sevastova has reached 3rd round in IW, including beating Ana Ivanovic few years ago. As for the match-up, I think Sevastova has an advantage in better baseline game. This match most likely will be very ugly and I'm not ruling out 3 sets (overs are good option, too) but expect the Latvian to win. Misaki Doi to beat Michelle Larcher De Brito. 1.82 @ Unibet (8/10) Neither of these two has ever won MD match at IW and I don't think either will achieve that target this year. The winner of this match might not get out of the qualies. I am not a fan of the very loud De Brito. She is very capable is screwing a lot of matches, especially after winning the first set. That has been the way she has lost both matches against Doi. Neither player is in particularly good form but Doi has played better opponents lately whereas Michelle is still stuck on ITF tour. Again, this might take few hours and 3 sets to complete but I fancy the Japanese to advance to the next round. She's just a little bit more solid and doesn't choke that much. Eugenie Bouchard to beat Elina Svitolina. 2.14 @ Pinnacle (6/10) Fancy Bouchard in this one as an underdog. In my opinion, she has more to offer on hard courts. Genie has very powerful game, including serve, she goes for her shots. Sadly, tends to miss a lot, too. She can choke big time as well and lack of experience has destroyed her on a few occasions lately but her results have improved lately. She had a very good match against Errani in Acapulco last week, lots of confidence to take from that. Bouchard and Svitolina have not played on WTA tour before but have couple matches between then in juniors. Bouchard destroyed Svitolina 6-2, 6-2 in last year's Wimbledon final and has another win over the Ukraine young star having defeated her in the prestigious Orange Bowl tournament in 2010. The result back then was 7-5, 6-2.