Maria Kirilenko is having a great season and, with all her good wins recently including being a finalist in the New Haven tournament last week, she has risen to number twelve in the WTA rankings, her highest yet – and no doubt she will rise even higher based on her current form. On Tuesday night in her first round match at the US Open, the Russian number two played the up and coming Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa, ranked 40. Kirilenko showed just how well she is playing, as she easily took out her opponent in two straightforward sets 6-2 6-1 in just an hour and a 15 minutes. She will face Greta Arn next, ranked at 121, who was the victor in the all Hungarian match against Agnes Szavay.
The American number two, Christina McHale, ranked 24 and seeded 21, took on the number two Dutch player, Kiki Bertens, who is ranked at 74. In a match which swung one way and then the other, Bertens came out on top with a 6-4 4-6 6-3 win. Her second round match will be against the Russian number 15, Olga Puchkova, ranked at 143, who was a winner in a very hard fought three setter against the American number 11, Irina Falconi, ranked 109, with the final score being 7-6 (5) 6-7 (2) 6-3.
Francesca Schiavone of Italy is having a rough time of things lately and is slipping down the rankings. Now ranked 26 and seeded 22, she met the American, Sloane Stephens, who is steadily rising up the rankings and is now at number 44. Both players are their country’s fourth ranked player. Stephens made light of the match, coming out on top with a straight sets win, 6-3 6-4. She will next take on Tatjana Malek of Germany.
To see all our predictions for upcoming matches, based on our machine learning model analysing results since 1960, see our tennis predictions page here.
