Analysis for Larcher de Brito-U.Radwanska (WTA Indian Wells)

Head-to-head record 0:0

Two youngsters will fight for the second round spot at BNP Paribas Open. Michelle Larcher de Brito is one of the youngest and the most talented players on WTA circuit nowadays. She had an excellent 2008 season and almost cracked into the top 100. In March 2008 in Miami, Michelle garnered the greatest win of her young career, beating World No. 16 Agnieszka Radwanska in the 2nd round at the age of 15. This was also the greatest victory ever in Portuguese female tennis. In July 2008, she nearly won the best victory of her career, narrowly losing to former world number one player Serena Williams in three sets. The day before, she had beaten world number 34 Gisela Dulko in straight sets. She then became (and still is) the highest ranked Portuguese women's player. At the Roger's Cup, Michelle won two qualifying matches to make it into the main draw. She then went on to defeat Vania King in the first round and Flavia Pennetta in the second round before losing to no. 4 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova in three sets. After this great performance by the 15-year old, Nick Bollettieri said she would become a Top-10 player. Even if she lacks experience, she has already managed to play some tight matches against the World top players and we think there is a bright future ahead of young Portugese. She lives in America and feels comfortable on US hard courts. She came through the qualifiers here and we believe she has many weapons to get over a bit more experienced opponent. Urszula Radwanska is an all-court player who hits consistently on both the forehand and the backhand sides. Her favorite shot is her backhand down-the-line. She is also very accurate with the drop shot and lob. She lacks much of the "power plays", thus she relies on tactical accuracy and patience on constructing the point before hitting a winner. She is a talented player as well and has a solid season this year with the biggest victory over her more famous sister in February 2009 but we are not convinced of her consistency and expect her to have some problems against confident Portugese who already has 2 matches under the belt. Larcher´s odds around 1.9 can be worth taking here.