On Wednesday, January 18th, the 1/32th final match of the Australian Open 2023 will be played between Angelina Kalinina (Ukraine, WTA 39) and Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic, WTA 15). The match will be played at the John Cain Arena for the second time after the Etcheverry-Sinner match. The approximate starting time of the match is 04:00 Kyiv time.

Angelina Kalinina

Angelina is Ukraine’s first racket. At the end of 2022, he won the trophy at the WTA level for the first time, but not the 250 series, but the 250 series. Still, this does not prevent the Ukrainian from entering the top 40 in the WTA rankings. Kalinina has 16 wins in ITF tournaments. The highest place in the WTA ranking is 32. The 2023 season has started well for Angelina. She first qualified for the first tournament of the WTA 500 series by defeating Dayana Yastremska and Tatyana Maria on the Adelaide courts, basically playing a tense two-set match with two tie-breaks against Victoria Azarenka. Unfortunately, Angelina lost to the representative of the Republic of Belarus. Soon Kalinina went to the tournament in Hobart, where she reached the quarterfinals of the tournament. There she lost to the American in three games after winning the first set against AO 2020 champion Sofia Kenin.

At the Australian Open, Ukraine’s first racket started off pretty well. In two sets, Angelina defeated Coco Vandewey. In this fight, the native of Nova Kakhovka made only one serve. In the first game, Angelina made the first timeout in the fifth game, but then immediately gave up her serve. Still, with a score of 3:3, the Ukrainian won the remaining 3 games and cut his opponent’s serve twice. The second set was just a formality. Angelina was in total control of the course of the fight, and Vandewey, 31, made multiple mistakes and couldn’t keep up with the pace of Angelina’s game. As a result – 6:3, 6:1 defeat and a confident victory for Kalinina. During the match, Angelina made 4 aces, made 3 double mistakes, won 67% of the points on the first serve and 61% on the second serve.

Meanwhile, Kalinina is the 2014 junior Australian Open doubles champion. He was the eighth racket when he was younger. Best result in AO career second round.

Petra Kvitova

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Petra Kvitova

Kvitova has two wins at Grand Slam tournaments: at Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014. She check she is a second oldest racket in the world and one of the best tennis players in the history of the Czech Republic. One of Petra’s main advantages is an excellent service and a strong forehand. And if you take into account the fact that he is left-handed, this causes even more trouble to his opponents. In 2011, Kvitova won the WTA Finals in addition to Wimbledon. She has won 29 WTA titles and 7 ITF titles in total. The best result in AO is the final in 2019. Kvitova started the new season in the United Cup team tournament by playing two singles matches: a win against Jessica Pegula and Laura Siegemund. After the United Cup, Petra reached the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 tournament in Adelaide, where she lost in two matches to Daria Kasatkina.

In the first round of the Aus Open 2023, elite Czech eliminated Alison van Uytvank in two sets. In the first match, the tennis players reached a tie-break without interrupting each other’s serve, where Kvitova beat the Belgian 7:3. The second game was completely under Petra’s dictation, and as a result – 6:2 and a confident exit to the second round of the Australian Major. During the match Petra made 4 aces and made 4 double mistakes. The Czech representative won 86% of the points in the first serve and 68% in the second serve. Meanwhile, he never gave up his serve in this fight, he even did not allow van Uytvank to score points.

personal meetings

Angelina and Petra were supposed to play in the 1/32 final of the Us Open 2022, but Kalinina withdrew due to illness. Before that, tennis players had never played each other.

guess

Angelina’s strength comes from her quality of holding the ball in the game. She can win long rallies, but that happens quite rarely. Often a decrease in Kalinina’s game is noticed during matches and tournaments, which prevents her from playing consistently at the top level and against her best opponents. As mentioned above, Kvitova is building her game from the service, but problems are glaring at the reception due to growth. If the Ukrainian woman manages to get her games consistently, she will at least be able to start a fight. We believe that Angelina can compete against the elite Kvitova – Angelina Kalinina’s handicap +4.5 for 1.56