Analysis for Wozniak-Pennetta (WTA Los Angeles)

Head-to-head record 0:0

Coming off the stellar run in Stanford, Aleksandra Wozniak from Canada will face Italian Flavia Pennetta in her LA opener. Last week in Stanford, Wozniak won the first WTA singles title of her career at the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford, defeating an injured sixth seed Marion Bartoli of France 7–5, 6–3 in the final. She was a qualifier to the tournament, so she had to win 3 qualifying matches and then 5 main draw matches in nine days, including wins over the top players such Serena Williams, Stosur, Bammer or Schiavone on the way to the title. She became the first Canadian in 20 years to win a WTA singles title. The victory vaulted her WTA singles ranking from 85 to 45 in the world. She always played her best on hard courts and with the self-confidence she earned last week, we think she is definitely capable to continue in her great run. She has everything she needs to be successful on fast courts. The only weakness is probably her limited movement but she is abnormally powerful and she should be able to overplay an Italian clay courter. Pennetta is an experienced player who usually plays from the backcourt and relies on quick movement. She has won six career WTA singles tites, all on clay courts. On fast surfaces, she has never got even close to her clay courts successes. We think that in-form playing Wozniak should be somewhere around 1.6 here and odds around 1.8 are worth taking here.